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SELECT POE 

OF 

ROBERT BROWNING 



LONGMANS' ENGLISH CLASSICS 




Class /(J'i^ O , 

Book C' ^7 

CopyrightN? /^ /c5l 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSrr 



LONGMANS' ENGLISH CLASSICS 

EDITED BY 

GEORGE RICE CARPENTER, A.B. 

PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC AND ENGLISH COMPOSITION IN COLUMBIA 
UNIVERSITY 



ROBERT BROWNING 



SELECT POEMS 



lotiffmanfi' C^nfflislb Clasfiicg 



SELECT POEMS 



OF 



ROBERT BROWNING 

EDITED 

WITH NOTES AND AN INTRODUCTION 



BY 

PERCIVAL CHUBB 

FORMERLY DIRECTOR OF ENGLISH, ETHICAL CULTURE SCHOOLS, 
NEW YORK CITY 




LOlS'GMAISrS, GKEEK, AND CO. 

FOURTH AVENUE AND SOth STREET, NEW YORK 
PRAIRIE AVENUE & 25th STREET, CHICAGO 









Copyright, 1905, 

BY 

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 



Copyright, 1915 

BY 

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 



First printed. December, 1905 

Reprinted August, 1909 

Reprinted with additions, June, 1915 




OCT 21 1915 

S)CI,A416024 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction 

I. Browning's Poetry vii 

II. Browning's Life and Personality xvii 

Suggestions to Teachers xxiii 

Chronological Table xxvi 

Poems — ■ 

Incident of the French Camp 1 

How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix . 2 

Through the Metidja to Abd-el-Kadr 5 

Muleykeh 6 

Tray 13 

Donald 14 

Herve Riel 23 

Pheidippides ' 29 

Echetlos 35 

The Patriot 37 

Count Gismond 39 

The Twins 43 

The Boy and the Angel 44 

My Last Duchess 47 

A Face 49 

Song from Pippa Passes 50 

Cavalier Tunes 50 

Home-Thoughts, from Abroad 53 

Home-Thoughts, from the Sea 53 

"De Gustibus— " 54 

Up at a Villa— Down in the City 55 

Memorabilia 59 

The Lost Leader 60 

Life in a Love 61 

Youth and Art 63 

Evelyn Hope 64 

Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister 66 

A Grammarian's Funeral 68 

One Word More 73 

Prospice 81 

Epilogue to Asolando 83 



vi CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Italian in England 83 

Instans Tyrannus 88 

The Pied Piper of Hamelin 90 

Notes 101 



INTRODUCTION 

I. Browning's Poetry 

The editor undertakes this task of his with a double 
ambition: first, with the hope that this little collection 
may introduce " to many a youth and many a maid " a 
few poems that hold an honored place in the hearts of 
those who love noble verse, and, secondly, that this 
taste may be appetizing enough to lead them farther 
into that world of varied humanity which is peopled by 
one of the most fertile and subtle creators of human 
character and personality. 

Although Tennyson and Browning are commonly 
coupled in popular references as the two primates of 
English poetry in the Victorian epoch, Browning still 
remains — all the ladies' Browning Clubs notwithstanding 
— little more than a name to the general reading public. 
This ignorance and neglect are reflected in our schools. 
While the little child of the primary grades knows Ten- 
nyson's "Brook" and other simple lays; while ''The 
Charge of the Light Brigade," "The Revenge," and half 
a dozen other ballads and lyrics find their way into the 
Elementary Readers and Anthologies; while the high 
school student has for years had to labor over "The 
Princess," and is now required to know "The Idylls of 
the King," — Browning's name is but scantily repre- 
sented in the texts by "The Pied Piper of Hamelin" and 
"How they Brought the Good News." At last a tardy 

vii 



Viii INTRODUCTION 

justice is being meted out to him by offering the college- 
bound student an inducement to read a short dozen of 
his representative poems. We who find in Browning an 
inspiring poet and a great master of insight into the 
problems of human life to whom we may turn for help, 
welcome this concession, and will try to make the most 
of it. 

Let me be frank with my readers and say that there 
are some plausible reasons for this neglect of Brown- 
ing. His manner has been against him: it is frequently 
unconventional and abrupt; it takes for granted an 
unusually alert intelligence. His matter, too, is more 
than commonly difficult: it implies a vivid interest in 
human character, in many types of the human soul, 
and in the conduct of men and women placed in per- 
plexing circumstances, — on spiritual trial, in short. In 
this, he suggests a quite common experience in social 
intercourse : our meeting with some one who is, as we say, 
"a trifle difficult to get on with," — brusque, reticent, 
or what not, — who yet, as we discover later, hides a 
heart of gold or a mind of piercing clearness behind his 
idiosyncrasy. Browning's unwonted ways may be easily 
made light of; and it is the purpose of this " Introduction" 
to him to play the part of a tactful host in smoothing out 
little surface difficulties that handicap an honored and 
distinguished guest. 

For instance, in the very first selection given here, the 
poet seems to take his reader familiarly by the arm, 
and unceremoniously to open up on him: "You know, 
we French stormed Ratisbon." "Indeed, sir, I don't 
know," says the surprised auditor; "and pray, sir, who 
are 'we French'?" This is Browning's little habit of 
monologing. He is dramatically assuming the role of 
some old cuirassier of Napoleon's guard, and asks you 



INTRODUCTION ix 

to imagine his addressing other scarred veterans who 
are comparing notes over many a glorious victory. The 
reader of Browning must at the outset get accustomed 
to this monologing habit and all that it takes for 
granted — little unexpected interpolations and asides on 
the part of the speaker; the sort of interruptions we get 
in Coleridge's " Ancient Mariner/' when we are suddenly 
recalled to the lank, lean-fingered mariner with his glit- 
tering eye, and the spellbound wedding-guest whom he 
has transfixed by it. The notes to the poems try to 
make this imaginative task easy. 

Browning; in short, exacts of his readers an active 
dramatic imagination. He asks of us, by the peculiar 
form of his poems, to visualize and realize the scene, the 
speaker, his gestures, his broken and elliptical speech, 
and so on. It is those who lack this imaginative capacity 
(a very important and precious endowment), who find 
Browning hard reading. The best advice, for those who 
would speedily overcome any difficulties on this account, 
is, first to read each new poem carefully, in order to seize 
the salient features of the dramatic situation which it 
presupposes; then to read it a second time aloud, identi- 
fying oneself dramatically with the person who speaks. 

For example, — to take a small point in one of the 
pieces cited, " My Last Duchess," — we gather from the 
first reading that the Duke and his guest, having left 
the company below, have been discussing a marriage 
contract on the floor above. Their discussion is ended; 
they are passing on their way to rejoin the company, 
when the guest's eye falls on the striking portrait of a 
beautiful woman. The Duke's vanity is flattered; that 
was his wife, painted by a great painter whom he had 
the wit and resources to employ; and so he proposes a 
halt, "Will't please you sit and look at her." So they 



X INTRODUCTION 

sit; and the silent reader of the poem must visualize the 
scene, and in imagination will sit down with the pair. 
We look and listen, absorbed in the story and the picture. 
Then (in 1. 47) the attention is brought back from these 
to the two sitting talkers: "Will't please you rise?'' 
They rise. "We'll meet the company below then." 
They proceed to the great stairway, talking the while. 
The visitor prepares to take his leave at the head of the 
stairs: "Nay, we'll go together down, sir. But, before 
we descend," he seems to imply, as he points a finger, 
"just notice that Neptune, in the alcove over there." 
This is a fairly palpable instance of the kind of imagi- 
native demand which Browning continually makes upon 
his readers. We must be ready to exercise this drama- 
tizing faculty. Perhaps I am laboring the point; but 
the elaboration may serve to help out in other cases, — 
in "Tray," for instance, with its unusual opening. 

So, then, the main recommendation I would make to the 
beginner, to enable him to overcome the chief difficulty of 
Browning's form, is to realize the dramatic suppositions 
of Browning's monologs. Dramatically conceived, the 
poems — so many of them — must be dramatically ap- 
proached and interpreted. 

Passing now to related difficulties in the subject- 
matter, the key is still the word "dramatic." Brown- 
ing has been aptly called the poet of situations, of crises 
in human lives. Many of his poems assume a moment 
of choice, a dramatic turning-point, in some one's life. 
Now it is the opportunity of love between the young 
singer and the sculptor in "Youth and Art." Now it is 
the patriot on his way to the scaffold to be tried as .to 
his faith, despite failure, in his vision of the past; his 
faith in the populace which has turned upon him whom 
it had lauded a short year ago, and in the trustworthi- 



INTRODUCTION xi 

ness of a God which could bring to naught his heroic 
effort after human improvement. And now it is the 
sportsman Donald, on trial when his humanity is put 
to the test by his "sportsmanlike" prompting to kill. 
Yes, Browning's dominating interest is the behavior of 
the human soul in moments of stress, when sore beset 
by temptation, when it is difficult to be brave. He 
conceives of us all as being, at some crucial moment, 
when our action will determine our whole future, tasked 
to fight the great fight of our lives. It is a supreme 
moment of trial, when we are to prove ourselves either 
heroes or cowards, either men and women of faith and 
fortitude or lost creatures of fear and despair. No, we 
must not use these words; ^^lost" is not in Browning's 
vocabulary. "We fall to rise." Our defeats may be 
turned to splendid spiritual victories, if we but conduct 
ourselves worthily in our adversity, and resolve to con- 
tinue the fight and to profit by the lesson. Equally, our 
victories may turn to inglorious spiritual defeats, if they 
relax our energies, or breed over-confidence or pride or 
selfishness. The hero of heroes is the battered and 
bowed victim of his own cowardice or meanness, who, 
having had a moment for the truth to flr.sh out upon 
him, gathers and reknits his energies for further battle. 
This is a high and exacting moral athleticism: who shall 
be equal to it? Browning's answer is: "You may be, 
must be. Ultimately there is no escape; the universe 
exists to discipline men's souls to that result of spiritual 
renewal." 

This is an evangel for youth. Do you not, you young 
man or woman who begin to understand, feel the invig- 
orating appeal and challenge of this message? At no time 
in life does this old-time gospel with its ultimate question 
— What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world 



xii INTRODUCTION 

and lose his own soul? — meet with such a ready response 
as it does in youth, the springtime of generous enthusiasm 
and idealism. At no time in the world's history has it 
been so important that this question should echo and 
reecho through the soul of youth, to keep it loyal, as it 
is now, when so rich and tempting a world lies stretched 
at the feet of every enterprising and ambitious youth. 
Hence the hope which the present editor indulges that 
an increasing number of high school and college students 
may be brought into the tonic atmosphere of Browning's 
stalwart and unfaltering faith, his rapturous recognition 
of the joy of deep living and heroic attainment, of true, 
noble love, of unbeaten endeavor and unquenchable 
aspiration. 

It is only a few of the simpler poems that can be given 
here, with some suggestion of what there is in the un- 
quarried remaii^ider. These longer and more complex 
studies of temperament and situation present the most 
varied types of manhood and womanhood in numerous 
nationalities, the good and the evil, the great and the 
lowly, the healthy and the diseased. Browning's opti- 
mism is so confident* that he does not hesitate to 
grapple with the greatly erring, the criminal and the 
sinning, by way of revealing the soul of goodness in 
things evil, and the subtle, devious ways by which every- 
thing is either in process of conversion into ultimate 
good, or hints the promise of fair weather after foul. 
To convey an idea of the scope of his work, the follow- 
ing rough classification may be made. We have a group 
of great dramas, — " Luria," "A Blot on the Scutcheon" 
(recently staged in New York), "Colombe's Birthday" 
(frequently presented), etc.; shorter pieces like "In a 

*See Song from Pippa Passes, and note thereon, pp. 50 
and 85. 



INTRODUCTION Xill 

Balcony" and "A Sours Tragedy"; the vast structure of 
the "Ring and the Book," in which Browning presents a 
crime seen from several distinctive points of view; a 
group of poems dealing with the arts (chiefly painting) 
arid great artists, "Andrea del Sarto," "Fra Lippo 
Lippi," "Old Pictures in Florence"; another group 
dealing in profound ways with music, "Abt Vogler," 
"A Toccata of Galuppi's," etc.; a larger group, with 
deeds of heroism, — well represented in this volume; a 
much larger one w4th love in innumerable aspects and 
forms of manifestation (Browning's master-theme); and 
a rich feast of poems which may be called religious, 
"Christmas Eve" and "Easter Day," "Caliban upon 
Setebos," "Rabbi ben Ezra," "Saul," " Cleon " — these 
last two dealing with a subject very near to the poet's 
heart, the problem of personal immortality. 

Only one more cautioning word must 'be said to those 
who would advance from the small enclosure of this 
volume of selections into the more spacious field: don't 
expect the ordinary kind of dramatic excitement. It is 
the caution one would administer to those who should 
expect the ordinary type of play in a presentation of one 
of Browning's dramas. These dramas have been pro- 
nounced failures by theater-goers — although some have 
been acceptably performed. Expect to find, we caution, 
the drama of deliberation rather than of action. Brown- 
ing's supreme interest is less in the outward acts than 
in the drama within the mind. It is the inner struggle, 
the storm of thought and emotion which drives the soul 
now this way and now that, to which he attaches cen- 
tral importance. The long soliloquy and debate of the 
troubled mind, the dialog of the two selves at strife in 
us, the pathetic and tragic plea of the angelic with the 
demonic powers in us — that it is which it is the aim of 



xiv INTRODUCTION 

his art to lay bare and interpret. In his attempt to do 
this we shall find either the strength or the weakness 
of Browning, according to the intensity of our interest 
in what we must call the psychology of the human soul. 
In emphasizing this supreme concern of Browning's 
with human character, and in preparing the young reader 
to pass on from the simple studies here given to the 
subtle analyses of all sorts and conditions of men and 
women in the longer poems, we must not neglect Brown- 
ing's more general accomplishments as a poet. Although 
his gaze is bent chiefly upon the inward world, he has a 
keen eye for the outward, and for the sensuous beauties 
of nature. Consider the sensitiveness to human beauty 
shown in such poems as "A Face," and the feeling for 
nature in "Home Thoughts from Abroad," or " De 
Gustibus." Several other instances tempt citation; this 
autumn scene, "Among the Rocks," for instance: 

Oh, good gigantic smile o' the brown old earth, 
This autumn morning! How he sets his bones 

To bask i' the sun, and thrusts out knees and feet 

For the ripple to run over in its mirth; 

Listening the while, where on the heap of stones 

The white breast of the sea-lark twitters sweet. 

Or this little seascape, with its lilting charm: 

The gray sea and the long black land; 
And the yellow half-moon large and low; 
And the startled little waves that leap 
In fiery ringlets from their sleep, 
As I gain the cove with pushing prow. 
And quench its speed i' the slushy sand. 

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach; 
Three fields to cross till a farm appears. 

Or this quiet evening scene: 



INTRODUCTION XV 

Where the quiet-colored end of evening smiles 

Miles and miles 
On the solitary pastures where our sheep • 

Half-asleep 
Tinkle homeward through the twilight, stray or stop 

As they crop. 

Now, — the single little turret that remains 

On the plains, 
By the caper overrooted, by the gourd 

Overscored, 
While the patching houseleek's head of blossom winks 

Through the chinks, 
Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time 

Sprang sublime. 

Nor must we fail to note the pure lyric quality of the 
songs, like that from "Pippa Passes," "Wanting is — 
What?" and "Pisgah Sights." Then, like every pas- 
sionate poet, Browning in his narrative verse will fre- 
quently pass over into a lyric vein. What can be more 
beautiful than this passage in his early poem, " Paracel- 
sus," from which we cite a few lines? 

Then all is still: earth is a wintry clod: 

But spring-wind, like a dancing psaltress, passes 

Over its breast to waken it. . . . 

Above birds fly in merry flocks, the lark 

Soars up and up, shivering for very joy: 

Afar the ocean sleeps: white fishing-gulls 

Flit where the strand is purple with its tribe 

Of nesting limpets : savage creatures seek 

Their loves in wood and plain — and God renews 

His ancient rapture. 

Of some of the striking features of Browning's poetic 
art much might be said. In spite of too much of harsh 
and halting colloquialism, and of a tendency towards the 
grotesque, and a love of surprise, his versification (and 



xvi INTRODUCTION 

his blank verse in particular) has a quality of rhythm 
which is all its own, and may be profitably compared 
with Tennyson's — in, say, the "Idylls of the King." 
But even more noticeable than his blank verse is Brown- 
ing's rimed verse. He has extraordinary facility in rim- 
ing; double and triple rimes abound. For an example you 
may look into one of the most fascinating of his poems, 
" The Flight of the Duchess," — a deliberate attempt at 
the grotesque. What jocularity in rime is this! 

Blessed was he whose back ached with the jerkin 

His sire was wont to do forest-work in; 

Blesseder he who nobly sunk " Ohs " 

And " Ahs " while he tugged on his grandsire's trunk-hose. 

Which should lead us on to say something concerning 
Browning's humor — a very pervasive quality in his 
poems, jetting 'out upon us in most unexpected ways. 
We have been able to give only one familiar example, 
the "Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister." Many others 
may be found; indeed, it is the poet's underlying sense 
of humor which makes possible such a masterpiece of 
ironic portraiture as "The Bishop Orders his Tomb at 
Saint Praxed's Church," of which Ruskin says, paying a 
tribute to Browning's profound insight into the Renais- 
sance, that he knows no other piece of modern English 
" in which there is so much told of the Renaissance spirit 
— its worldliness, inconsistency, pride, hypocrisy, igno- 
rance of itself, love of art, of luxury, and of good Latin." 

Finally, much might be said of the definitely auto- 
biographical parts of Browning's work, and more espe- 
cially of the traces to be found in it of the marriage which 
links his name with that of the great woman-poet whose 
heart was as passionate and whose mind was almost as 
brilliant as his own. 



INTRODUCTION xvii 

here, we have the most striking of his addresses to his 
wife; but her influence, her presence in his life, even after 
his bereavement, is felt in many a poem: it gives a 
quality to his love-poems which finds a parallel only in 
Elizabeth Barrett Browning's unapproached "Sonnets 
from the Portuguese." But of this we shall say more in 
the short biographical section which follows. 

II. Browning's Life and Personality 

We feel Browning's stalwart, buoyant personality 
everywhere in his work. It is commonly remarked that, 
be the dramatic figure what it may, man or woman, 
ancient or modern, the voice that speaks through it is 
the voice of Robert Browning. There is much truth in 
this; most of his personages have a Browning manner and 
bearing. But this must not mislead us to the conclusion 
that his "fifty men and women," and more, have no dis- 
tinct and individual qualities of their own, — his Fra 
Lippo Lippi, and Andrea del Sarto, for example. Never- 
theless, the various " dramatis personse " are so conceived 
and handled that they illuminate Browning's own fun- 
damental conclusions about life. In a large sense he 
is a preaching poet; a rimer of "morality plays." 

Thus it may be said that his life is in his work. True 
of him more than of most poets are the following words 
from a letter which the present writer received from 
Browning's distinguished contemporary, William Morris: 
" For my part I think any biography of men engaged in 
art and literature is absolutely worthless: their works are 
their biography." This was Browning's general feeling, 
too, as some of his poems declare. The few facts that 
call for record here are these: 

Robert Browning was born May 7, 1812, in Camberwell, 



xviii INTRODUCTION 

London, a suburb in the locality made famous by Ruskin, 
who lived at Heme Hill nearby, of which he has left a 
fascinating description in his " Praeterita." His father 
was a great lover of books, and the boy caught the pas- 
sion. He went to school; then at fourteen studied under 
tutors; and at eighteen was matriculated at London 
University, where he spent two years. This schooling 
and formal studying was the least part of his education. 
He had developed in a wholesome, all-round fashion: 
knew Latin and French well, and was becoming proficient 
in Greek too. He had loved nature; had roamed woods 
and fields; had kept pet animals of various kinds, being 
always a lover of animals (as the poems here show) , and 
had made collections of one sort and another. He had 
studied music and art to some purpose — in fact, wavered 
as to whether these arts or that of poetry should claim 
his life-devotion; He learned also to ride, dance, box, 
and fence. Also he browsed and meditated much; and 
we have a striking word-picture of him lying for hours 
on the grass and looking out from a high spot near his 
home upon the great city whose swarming humanity 
lent it its chief interest for him. 

He began early to versify, and received encouragement 
from his proud parents. But it was not until his genius 
caught fire from contact with another poet who made 
a profound impression upon him, that he produced any- 
thing really individual. He accidentally picked up from 
a bookstall a copy of Shelley. He had never heard the 
name, but soon found out the main facts about the dead 
poet; and his mother bought him a set of Shelley. The 
result was his first notable poem, "Pauline" (January, 
1833). A little later followed "Paracelsus,'' which 
brought him some recognition from people of note — 
among them the actor Macready, for whom he proceeded 



INTRODUCTION xix 

to write a play, "Strafford/' which was produced at 
Covent Garden theater by that actor and Miss Helen 
Faucit. The most difficult of his poems followed, "Bor- 
dello," while writing which he made his first visit to 
Italy, the country which he has spoken of as his 
"University." He then wrote his other dramas one after 
another (see Chronological Table, p. xxvi), and many of 
his famous short poems, which he published in the very 
unusual form of thin paper-covered volumes, called 
"Bells and Pomegranates," now among the book- 
collector's great treasures. 

Suddenly into his life of free and varied enjoyment 
came the great change that followed upon his meeting 
a fellow-poet of whom he had heard something, Elizabeth 
Barrett — then a fragile, couch-ridden invalid. They 
loved, and Browning proposed marriage. Although a 
physician held out hopes that removal to Italy might 
restore the invalid to health, Mr. Barrett objected to his 
daughter's marrying. The affianced pair took the matter 
into their own hands. They were quietly married, with- 
out her father's knowledge, September 12, 1846. Then 
they met by agreement and went to Paris and thence to 
Italy, where they lived — for the most part at Florence, 
in the famous old palace of Casa Guidi — during the fif- 
teen years of their married life, journeying occasionally 
to England and Paris. Two sons were born to them, one 
of whom died. Husband and wife worked at their craft 
very independently, and the story of their life and labors 
and friendships in Florence is an engaging chapter in our 
literary history. Of the intercourse of these two great 
lovers and poets the great memorial is their correspond- 
ence, published a few years ago — with not a little pro- 
test against this laying bare of such sacred intimacies — 
by their surviving son, Robert Barrett Browning. 



XX INTRODUCTION 

Mrs. Browning died in 1861. Browning then left Italy 
for England and made his home in London. By this 
time his long-neglected work began to make its way with 
the public. There was an increasing demand for his 
books, and for volumes of selections from them. Honors 
came to him from the Universities. Then he began in 
1868 the publication of his longest work, " The Ring and 
the Book/' completed in six volumes. Thereafter he 
continued to produce one work after another until his 
output was prodigious. All this while he was more and 
more of a favorite in cultivated circles, and was seen 
much at social gatherings and functions — a most genial, 
lovable man, who shared in the life about him with the 
zest and the unaffected simplicity that won him a host 
of friends. 

It was in 1882, while negotiating for the purchase of 
a villa at Asolo, that he was taken ill, and died at his 
son's home in Venice on December 12, 1889. His country- . 
men insisted upon his being brought home to rest in his 
native country, and he was buried in Westminster Abbey 
on the last day of the year. Italy did not fail to honor 
him also: on the wall of the Rezzonico Palace where he 
died she has placed a memorial tablet upon which appear 
the lines from "De Gustibus": 

Open my heart and you will see 
Graved inside of it, "Italy." 

The best generalized impression of the poet's vigorous 
personality is that contained in the following lines by his 
great and admiring contemporary, Walter Savage Landor, 
whose name and fame are so clearly associated with his 
younger friend's beloved Italy: 



INTRODUCTION xxi 

Browning! Since Chaucer was alive and hale 

No man has walked along our roads with step 

So active, so inquiring eye, or tongue 

So varied in discourse. But warmer climes 

Give brighter plumage, stronger wing: the breeze 

Of Alpine heights thou playest with, borne on 

Beyond Sorrento and Amalfi, where 

The Siren waits thee, singing song for song. 



SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS 

The poetry is the thing! If you do not like that — 
and like it greatly — do not touch it. You are not 
obliged to, for Browning is an elective in the groups 
of readings for college entrance. Take him up for the 
joy of the thing, so to speak; because you believe, as the 
writer has expressed himself in the foregoing Intro- 
duction, that he will make blood, — brain and heart, — 
heroism and love and aspiration, — a deeper insight 
into human nature, for boys and girls in the susceptible 
adolescent period. 

If you have chosen this edition of the Selections, it is 
presumably because you agree with the editor's general 
point of view and method of approach. The main article 
of his belief is that Browning must be dramatically ap- 
prehended and rendered. Some other poets demand oral 
interpretation because of the music of their verse; Brown- 
ing, because of the dramatic and colloquial form of his. 
This dramatic rendering may be and must be done without 
the staginess and the vocal ceremony that touches the 
risibles of our youth. There are no recipes for the good 
taste and the sense of proportion which are needed here 
in conjunction with the deep, sincere feeling of genuine 
poetic appreciation. The teacher must be an artist, 
that's all. Nothing further need be said by way of help 
than what is said with reference to specific poems in the 
Introduction and the Notes. 

It will pay the teacher to be sure, as soon as a poem has 
xxiii 



Xxiv SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS 

been read, that the imagination of the pupils has been 
quickened: that scene, situation, persons, stand out for 
the visualizing faculty with appropriate distinctness. 

The philosophy of those poems that have an obvious 
philosophy must, of course, be brought home concretely 
or dramatically — that is, in terms of personality. The 
word becomes flesh, takes on the hue and color of life. 
It must live, not as an abstraction, but incorporate in 
the individuality which the poet creates. 

It is necessary, of course, that the teacher should be 
thoroughly familiar with most of Browning's work; so 
that other poems and passages may be drawn upon to 
throw light upon those here given. 

The editor has chosen, instead of grouping together 
the few poems given in the college entrance list, to place 
them in a setting that will help both to develop their 
wider relations to Browning's work as a whole, and to 
keep in the back-ground the fact that the reading of 
Browning subserves college entrance purposes. There is 
method in the grouping, although here and there con- 
siderations other than those of likeness of literary species 
have led to a departure from strict classification. The 
Notes seek to indicate the nature of the special relation- 
ships. The teacher will, of course, use his own judgment 
as to the order of attack according to his own general 
habits and the quality of his class. He will also find it 
expedient, doubtless, now to ignore, now to dissent from, 
and now to amplify the Notes. 

It is advised that the large Browning literature be 
sparingly used. Let not the encyclopedias, handbooks, 
and guides be generally or indiscriminately used. Sharp's 
Life (Great Writers Series) is a good and indispensable 
general guide and contains a full bibliography. Mrs. On 
will do for the students, in outlining a poem, what the 



SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS XXV 

teacher may wish them to do for themselves; and the 
same may be said of other primers and handbooks. 
All, however, may find occasional use, for particular 
purposes. Special essays, like Dowden's Comparison of 
Tennyson and Browning (in his "Studies in Literature"), 
the teacher, with the aid of the bibliography, will consult 
as occasion demands. Cooke, Corson, Hutton, Nettle- 
ship, Stedman, Symons, are the most important names 
in the bibliography. The editions are numerous: the 
one-volume "Cambridge" edition (Houghton, Mifflin) 
very convenient; the ''Camberwell" edition (Crowell), 
the most fully annotated. 



NOTE 

The poems specified in the College Entrance Requirements are: 
"Cavalier Tunes," "The Lost Leader," "How They Brought the 
Good News from Ghent to Aix," "Home-Thoughts, from Abroad," 
■'Home-Thoughts, from the Sea," "Licident of the French Camp," 
"Herve Riel," "Pheidippides," "My Last Duchess," "Up at a 
Villa— Down in the City," "The Italian in England," "The 
Patriot," " DeGustibus— ," " The Pied Piper," " InstansTyrannus." 
But, as suggested above, these poems, while they may receive 
special attention, should have their setting in at least as many more 
poems as have been included in this volume. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 



Browning. 



Contemporary Literature. 



1812. 



Born in London, 
berwell.) 



(Cam- 



1826. 



1829. 



(Mrs. Browning's first 
writings — Essay on 
Mind, etc.) 

Attends University Col- 
lege, then first opened. 



1832. Pauline written, 
lished 1833. 



pub- 



Elizabeth Barrett, Dar- 
win, and Tennyson, born 
in 1809; Thackeray, 1811; 
Dickens, 1812. In 1812 
Wordsworth was 40; 
Scott, 41; Coleridge, 42; 
Lamb, 45; Byron, 24; 
Shelley, 20; Keats and 
Coleridge, 17. 

1813. Shelley's Queen Mab. 
Southey, laureate. 

1814. Scott's Waverley. 

1816. Bryant's Thanatopsis. 
Byron's Childe Harold. 

1818. Irving's Sketch-Book. 

1819. Ruskin born. 

1820. George Eliot, Spencer, 
Tyndall born. Keats, im- 
portant poems. 

1821. Cooper's Spy. Keats 
died. 

1822. Irving's Bracebridge Hall. 
Arnold born. Shelley 
died. 

1824. Byron died. 

1825. Carlyle's Life of Schiller. 



1830. Tennyson's Poems, chiefly 
Lyrical. 

1831. Foe's Raven. Whittier's 
Legends of New England. 

1832. Goethe and Scott died. 



XXVI 



CHRONOLOGIC A L TA BLE — Continued 



xxvii 



Browning. 



Contemporary Literature. 



1833. 



1835. 



1S37. 

1838. 



1840. 
1841. 



1842. 
1843. 

1844. 
1845. 
1846. 

1847. 

1849. 
1850. 

1851. 
1855. 
1856. 



Travels to Russia and 
first visits Italy. (Mrs. 
Browning's translation of 
Prometheus Bound.) 
Paracelsus. 



Strafford acted. 
Again visits Italy. (Mrs. 
Browning's Seraphim and 
Other Poems.) 



Sordello. 
Pippa Passes. 



King Victor and King 
Charles. Dramatic Lyrics. 
Return of the Druses. A 
Blot on the 'Scutcheon. 
Colombe's Birthday. 

(Mrs. Browning's Poems.) 

Dramatic Romances and 
Lyrics. 

Luria. A Soul's Tragedy. 
(These published in eight 
numbers of Bells and 
Pomegranates.) Married 
to Elizabeth Barrett. 
Settles in Florence at 
Casa Guidi. 



His mother dies. A son 
born — Robert Wiede- 
mann Browning. 
Christmas Eve and Easter 
Day. (Mrs. Browning's 
Sonnets from the Portu- 
guese.) 

(Mrs. Browning's Casa 
Guidi Windows.) 
Men and Women. 

(Mrs. Browning's Aurora 
Leigh.) 



1833. Carlyle's Sartor Resartus. 
Tennyson's Poems. 



1836. Dickens's Boz and Pick- 
wick. 

1837. Victoria queen. 



1839. Longfellow's Hyperion. 

1 84 1 . Dumas 's Monte Crista and 
Longfellow's Voices of the 
Night. 

1842. Macaulay's Lays of An- 
cient Rome. 

1843. Wordsworth, laureate. 
Dickens's Christmas 
Carol. Ruskin's Modern 
Painters (vol. i). 

1844. Thackeray's Barry Lyn- 
don. 

1845. Hawthorne's Mosses from 
an Old Manse. 

1846. Dickens's Dombey and 
Son. 



1847. Tennyson's Princess. 

1848. Thackeray's Vanity Fair. 
(Revolution abroad.) 

1849. Emerson's Representative 
Men. 

1850. Wordsworth died. Tenny- 
son, laureate. 



1851. 
1855. 



1856. 



Hawthorne's House of the 
Seven Gables. 
Matthew Arnold's Poems. 
Longfellow's Hiawatha. 
Motley's Dutch Republic. 
Emerson's English Traits. 



XXVIU 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE — Condndedi 



Browning. 



Contemporary Literature. 



1860. 



1861. 

1862. 

1863. 

1864. 
1866. 
1867. 

1868. 
1871. 



1872. 
1873. 

1875. 



(Mrs. Browning's Poems 
he] ore Congress.) 



Mrs. Browning dies. 
Browning leaves Italy 
and settles in London. 
(Mrs. Browning's Last 
Poems.) 

Complete Edition of his 
works. 

Dramatis Personae. 
His father dies. 
Honorary M.A. of Ox- 
ford. 

The Ring and the Book. 
Balaustion's Adventure. 
Prince H ohenstiel- 
Schwarzgau. 



Fifine at the Fair. 



Red Cotton 
Country. 
Aristophanes' 
The Inn Album. 



Nightcap 
Apology. 



1876. Pacchiarotto. 

1877. Agamemnon of Aeschylus. 

1878. La Saisiaz. The Two 
Poets o/ Croisic. 

1879-80. Dramatic Idylls. 

1883. Jocoseria. 



1884. Ferishtah's Fancies. 
1887. Parlcyings with Certain 

People. 
1889. Asolando. Dies at Venice. 

Buried in Westminster 

Abbey. 



1860. George Eliot's Mill on 
the Floss. Holmes's Pro- 
fessor at the Breakfa.st 
Table. 

1 86 1 . George Eliot 's Silas Mar- 



1862. Ruskin's Unto this Last. 

1863. George Eliot's Romola. 

1864. Tennyson's Enoch Arden. 

1866. George Eliot's Felix Holt. 

1867. Longfellow's translation 
of Dante's Divine Comedy 

1868. Morris's Earthly Paradise. 

1871. Darwin's Descent of Man. 
Meredith's Harry Rich- 
mond. Swinburne's *Songfs 
before Sunrise. 

1872. Hardy's Under the Green- 
wood Tree. 

1873. Mill's Autobiography. 

1875. Tennyson's Queen Mary. 
Arnold's God and the 
Bible. 

1876. Morris's Sigurd the Vol- 
sung. 

1877. Tennyson's Harold. 

1878. Morley's Diderot and the 
Encyclopedists. 

1879. Henry James's Daisy 
Miller. 

1883. Correspondence of Carlyle 
and Emerson. Steven- 
son's Treasure Island. 

1884. Tennyson's Becket. 
1887. Stevenson's Underwoods. 

1889. Tennyson's Demeter and 
other Poems. 



SELECT POEMS 



OP 



ROBERT BROWNING 



INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP 

You know, we French stormed Ratisbon: 

A mile or so away, 
On a little mound, Napoleon , 

Stood on our storming-day; 
With neck out-thrust, you fancy how, 5 

Legs wide, arms locked behind. 
As if to balance the prone brow 

Oppressive with its mind. 

Just as perhaps he mused " My plans 

That soar, to earth may fall, 10 

Let once my army-leader Lannes 

Waver at yonder wall," — 
Out 'twixt the battery-smokes there flew 

A rider, bound on bound 
Full-galloping; nor bridle drew 15 

Until he reached the mound. 

Then off there flung in smiling joy, 

And held himself erect 
By just his horse's mane, a boy: 

You hardly could suspect — 20 

1 



2 ROBERT BROWNING 

(So tight he kept his lips compressed, 

Scarce any blood came through) 
You looked twice ere you saw his breast 

Was all but shot in two. 

"Well," cried he, "Emperor, by God's grace 25 

We've got you Ratisbon! 
The Marshal's in the market-place, 

And you'll be there anon 
To see your flag-bird flap his vans 

Where I, to heart's desire, 30 

Perched him!" The chief's eye flashed; his plans 

Soared up again like fire. 

The chief's eye flashed ; but presently 

Softened itself, as sheathes 
A film the mother-eagle's eye 35 

When her bruised eaglet breathes; 
" You're wounded! " " Nay," the soldier's pride 

Touched to the quick, he said: 
"I'm killed, Sire!" And his chief beside, 

Smiling the boy fell dead. 40 

"HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS 
FROM GHENT TO AIX" 

[16-] 

I SPRANG to the stirrup, and Joris, and he; 

I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three; 

"Good speed!" cried the watch, as the gate-bolts 

undrew ; 
"Speed!" echoed the wall to us galloping through; 
Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest, 5 

And into the midnight we galloped abreast. 



"HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS" 3 

Not a word to each other; we kept the great pace 
Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our 

place; 
I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight, 
Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right, 10 
Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chained slacker the bit. 
Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit. 

Twas moonset at starting; but while we drew near 
Lokeren, the cocks crew and twilight dawned clear; 
At Boom, a great yellow star came out to see; 15 

At Diiffeld, 'twas morning as plain as could be; 
And from Mecheln church-steeple we heard the half- 
chime. 
So Joris broke silence with, " Yet there is time ! '' 

At Aershot, up leaped of a sudden the sun, 

And against him the cattle stood black every one, 20 

To stare through the mist at us galloping past, 

And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last, 

With resolute shoulders, each butting pway 

The haze, as some bluff river headland its spray: 

And his low head and crest, just one sharp ear bent 

back 25 

For my voice, and the other pricked out on his track; 
And one eye's black intelligence, — ever that glance 
O'er its white edge at me, his own master, askance! 
And the thick heavy spume-flakes which aye and anon 
His fierce lips shook upwards in galloping on. 30 

By Hasselt, Dirck groaned; and cried Joris, "Stay spur! 
Your Roos galloped bravely, the fault's not in her. 



4 ROBERT BROWNING 

We'll remember at Aix" — for one heard the quick 

wheeze 
Of her chest, saw the stretched neck and staggering 

knees, 
And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank, 35 

As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank. 

So, we were left galloping, Joris and I, 

Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky; 

The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh, 

'Neath our feet broke the brittle bright stubble like 

chaff; 40 

Till over by Dalhem a dome-spire sprang white, 
And "Gallop," gasped Joris, "for Aix is in sight!" 

"How they'll greet us!" — and all in a moment his 

roan 
Rolled neck and croup over, lay dead as a stone; 
And there was my Roland to bear the whole weight 45 
Of the news which alone could save Aix from her fate, 
With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim, 
And with circles of red for his eye-sockets' rim. 

Then I cast loose my buff coat, each holster let fall. 
Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and all, 50 

Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear. 
Called my Roland his pet-name, my horse without peer; 
Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any noise, bad 

or good, 
Till at length into Aix Roland galloped and stood. 

And all I remember is — friends flocking round 55 

As I sat with his head 'twixt my knees on the ground; 
And no voice but was praising this Roland of mine, 



THROUGH THE METIDJA TO ABD-EL-KADR 5 

As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine, 
Which (the burgesses voted by common consent) 
Was no more than his due who brought good news from 
Ghent. 60 



THROUGH THE METIDJA TO ABD-EI^KADR 

As I ride, as I ride, 

With a full heart for my guide, 

So its tide rocks my side, 

As I ride, as I ride, 

That, as I were double-eyed. 

He, in whom our Tribes confide. 

Is descried, ways untried, 

As I ride, as I ride. 



As I ride, as I ride 

To our Chief and his Allied, 10 

Who dares chide my heart's pride 

As I ride, as I ride? 

Or are witnesses denied — 

Through the desert waste and wide 

Do I glide unespied 

As I ride, as I ride? 15 

As I ride, as I ride, 

When an inner voice has cried, 

The sands slide, nor abide 

(As I ride, as I ride) 20 

O'er each visioned homicide 

That came vaunting (has he lied?) 

To reside — where he died, 

As I ride, as I ride. 



6 ROBERT BROWNING 

As I ride, as I ride, 25 

Ne'er has spur my swift horse plied, 

Yet his hide, streaked and pied, 

As I ride, as I ride. 

Shows where sweat has sprung and dried, 

— Zebra-footed, ostrich-thighed — 30 

How has vied stride with stride 

As I ride, as I ride! 

As I ride, as I ride, 

Could I loose what Fate has tied, 

Ere I pried, she should hide 35 

(As I ride, as I ride) 

All that's meant me — satisfied 

When the Prophet and the Bride 

Stop veins I'd have subside 

As I ride, as I ride! 40 

MULEYKEH 

If a stranger passed the tent of Hoseyn, he cried "A 

churl's!" 
Or haply "God help the man who has neither salt nor 

bread!" 
— "Nay," would a friend exclaim, "he needs nor pity 

nor scorn 
More than who spends small thought on the shore-sand, 

picking pearls. 
Holds but in light esteem the seed -sort, bears instead 5 
On his breast a moon-like prize, some orb which of night 

makes morn. 

"What if no flocks and herds enrich the son of Sinan? 
They went when his tribe was mulct, ten thousand camels 
the due, 



MULEYKEH 7 

Blood-value paid perforce for a murder done of old. 
'God gave them, let them go! But never since time 

began, 10 

Muleykeh, peerless mare, owned master the match of you, 
And you are my prize, my Pearl: I laugh at men^s land 

and gold!' 

" So in the pride of his soul laughs Hoseyn — and right, 

I say. 
Do the ten steeds run a race of glory? Outstripping all, 
Ever Muleykeh stands first steed at the victor's staff. 15 
Who started, the owner's hope, gets shamed and named, 

that day. 
* Silence,' or, last but one, is ^ The Cuffed,' as we use to call 
Whom the paddock's lord thrusts forth. Right, Hoseyn, 

I say, to laugh!" 

*' Boasts he Muleykeh the Pearl?" the stranger replies: 

" Be sure 
On him I waste nor scorn nor pity, but lavish both 20 
On Duhl the son of Sheyban, who withers away in heart 
For envy of Hoseyn's luck. Such sickness admits no 

cure. 
A certain poet has sung, and sealed the same with an 

oath, 
'For the vulgar — flocks and herds! The Pearl is a 

prize apart.'" 

Lo, Duhl the son of Sheyban comes riding to Hoseyn's 
tent, 25 

And he casts his saddle down, and enters and "Peace!" 
bids he. 

" You are poor, I know the cause : my plenty shall mend 
the wrong. 



8 ROBERT BROWNING 

Tis said of your Pearl — the price of a hundred camels 

spent 
In her purchase were scarce ill paid: such prudence is far 

from me 
Who proffer a thousand. Speak! Long parley may last 

too long." 30 

Said Hoseyn, " You feed young beasts a many, of famous 

breed, 
Slit-eared, unblemished, fat, true offspring of Muzennem: 
There stumbles no weak-eyed she in the line as it climbs 

the hill. 
But I love Muleykeh's face: her forefront whitens indeed 
Like a yellowish wave's cream-crest. Your camels — 

go gaze on them! 35 

Her fetlock is foam-splashed too. Myself am the richer 

still." 

A year goes by: lo, back to the tent again rides Duhl. 
" You are open-hearted, ay — moist-handed, a very prince. 
Why should I speak of sale? Be the mare your simple 

gift! 
My son is pined to death for her beauty : my wife prompts 

'Fool, 40 

Beg for his sake the Pearl! Be God the rewarder, since 
God pays debts seven for one: who squanders on Him 

shows thrift.' " 

Said Hoseyn, " God gives each man one life, like a lamp, 

then gives 
That lamp due measure of oil : lamp lighted — hold high, 

wave wide 
Its comfort for others to share! once quench it, what 

help is left? 45 



MULEYKEH 9 

The oil of your lamp is your son: I shine while Muleykeh 

lives. 
Would I beg your son to cheer my dark if Muleykeh died? 
It is life against life: what good avails to the life-bereft?" 

Another year, and — hist! What craft is it Duhl designs? 
He alights not at the door of the tent as he did last 

time, 50 

But, creeping behind, he gropes his stealthy way by the 

trench 
Half-round till he finds the flap in the folding, for night 

combines 
With the robber — and such is he : Duhl, covetous up to 

crime. 
Must wring from Hoseyn's grasp the Pearl, by whatever 

the wrench. 

" He was hunger-bitten, I heard : I tempted with half my 

store, 55 

And a gibe was all my thanks. Is he generous like Spring 

dew? 
Account the fault to me who chaffered with such an one! 
He has killed, to feast chance comers, the creature he 

rode : nay, more — 
For a couple of singing-girls his robe has he torn in two: 
I will beg! Yet I nowise gained by the tale of my wife 

and son. 60 

" I swear by the Holy House, my head will I never wash 
Till I filch his Pearl away. Fair dealing I tried, then 

guile, 
And now I resort to force. He said we must live or die: 
Let him die, then, — let me live! Be bold — but not 

too rash! 



10 ROBERT BROWNING 

I have found me a peeping-place : breast, bury your 
breathing while 65 

I explore for myself! Now, breathe! He deceived me 
not, the spy! 

''As he said — there lies in peace Hoseyn — how happy! 

Beside 
Stands tethered the Pearl: thrice winds her headstall 

about his wrist: 
Tis therefore he sleeps so sound — the moon through the 

roof reveals. 
And, loose on his left, stands too that other, known far 

and wide, 70 

Buheyseh, her sister born: fleet is she yet ever missed 
The winning tail's fire-flash a-stream past the thunderous 

heels. 

"No less she stands saddled and bridled, this second, in 

case some thief 
Should enter and seize and fly with the first, as I mean 

to do. 
What then? The Pearl is the Pearl: once mount her we 

both escape." 75 

Through the skirt-fold in glides Duhl, — so a serpent 

disturbs no leaf 
In a bush as he parts the twigs entwining a nest: clean 

through, 
He is noiselessly at his work: as he planned, he performs 

the rape. 

He has set the tent-door wide, has buckled the girth, has 

clipped 
The headstall away from the wrist he leaves thrice bound 

as before, 80 



mulSykeh 11 

He springs on the Pearl, is launched on the desert like 

bolt from bow. 
Up starts our plundered man: from his breast though 

the heart be ripped, 
Yet his mind has the mastery: behold, in a minute 

more, 
He is out and off and away on Buheyseh, whose worth 

we know! 

And Hoseyn — his blood turns flame, he has learned 

long since to ride, 85 

And Buheyseh does her part, — they gain — they are 

gaining fast 
On the fugitive pair, and Duhl has Ed-Darraj to cross 

and quit. 
And to reach the ridge El-Saban, — no safety till that be 

spied ! 
And Buheyseh is, bound by bound, but a horse-length 

off at last. 
For the Pearl has missed the tap of the heel, the touch 

of the bit. 90 

She shortens her stride, she chafes at her rider the strange 

and queer: 
Buheyseh is mad with hope — beat sister she shall and 

must, 
Though Duhl, of the hand and heel so clumsy, she has 

to thank. 
She is near now, nose by tail — they are neck by croup 

— joy! fear! 
What folly makes Hoseyn shout ^^Dog Duhl, Damned 

son of the Dust, 95 

Touch the right ear and press with your foot my Pearl's 

left flank!" 



12 ROBERT BROWNING 

And Duhl was wise at the word, and Muleykeh as prompt 
perceived 

Who was urging redoubled pace, and to hear him was to 
obey, 

And a leap indeed gave she, and evanished forevermore. 

And Hoseyn looked one long last look as who, all be- 
reaved, 100 

Looks, fain to follow the dead so far as the living may: 

Then he turned Buheyseh's neck slow homeward, weeping 
sore. 

And, lo, in the sunrise, still sat Hoseyn upon the ground 
Weeping: and neighbors came, the tribesmen of Benu- 

Asad 
In the vale of green Er-Rass, and they questioned him 

of his grief; 105 

And he told from first to last how, serpent-like, Duhl had 

wound 
His way to the nest, and how Duhl rode like an ape, so 

bad! 
And how Buheyseh did wonders, yet Pearl remained 

with the thief. 

And they jeered him, one and all: "Poor Hoseyn is 

crazed past hope! 
How else had he wrought himself his ruin, in fortune's 

spite? 110 

To have simply held the tongue were a task for boy or 

girl. 
And here were Muleykeh again, the eyed like an antelope. 
The child of his heart by day, the wife of his breast by 

night!" — 
"And the beaten in speed!" wept Hoseyn. "You never 

have loved my Pearl." 



TRAY 13 



TRAY 

Sing me a hero! Quench my thirst 
Of soul, ye bards! 

Quoth Bard the first: 
*' Sir Olaf, the good knight, did don 
His helm and eke his habergeon" . . . 
Sir Olaf and his bard ! 5 

"That sin-scathed brow" (quoth Bard the second), 

"That eye wide ope as though Fate beckoned 

My hero to some steep, beneath 

Which precipice smiled tempting death" . . . 

You too without your host have reckoned! 10 

"A beggar-child" (let's hear this third!) 

"Sat on a quay's edge: like a bird 

Sang to herself at careless play. 

And fell into the stream. ' Dismay! 

Help, you the standers-by!' None stirred. 15 

" Bystanders reason, think of wives 

And children ere they risk their lives. 

Over the balustrade has bounced 

A mere instinctive dog, and pounced 

Plumb on the prize. 'How well he dives! 20 

"'Up he comes with the child, see, tight 
In mouth, alive too, clutched from quite 
A depth of ten feet — twelve, I bet! 
Good dog! What, off again? There's yet 
Another child to save? All right! 25 



14 ROBERT BROWNING 

" ' How strange we saw no other fall ! 

It's instinct in the animal. 

Good dog! But he's a long while under: 

If he got drowned I should not wonder — 

Strong current, that against the wall ! 30 

" ' Here he comes, holds in mouth this time 

— What may the thing be? Well, that's prime! 

Now, did you ever? Reason reigns 

In man alone, since all Tray's pains 

Have fished — the child's doll from the slime!' 35 

" And so, amid the laughter gay. 

Trotted my hero off, — old Tray, — 

Till somebody, prerogatived 

With reason, reasoned : ' Why he dived, 

His brain would show us, I should say. 40 

" ' John, go and catch — or, if needs be, 

Purchase — that animal for me! 

By vivisection, at expense 

Of half-an-hour and eighteenpence, 

How brain secretes dog's soul, we'll see!''' 45 

DONALD 

" Will you hear my story also, 

— Huge Sport, brave adventure in plenty?" 
The boys were a band from Oxford, 

The oldest of whom w^as twenty. 

The bothy we held carouse in 5 

Was bright with fire and candle; 
Tale followed tale like a merry-go-round 

Whereof Sport turned the handle. 



DONALD 15 

In our eyes and noses — turf -smoke : 

In our ears a tune from the trivet, 10 

Whence " Boiling, boiling," the kettle sang, 

"And ready for fresh Glenlivet." 

So, feat capped feat, with a vengeance: 
Truths, though, — the lads were loyal: 

"Grouse, five-score brace to the bag! 15 

Deer, ten hours' stalk of the Royal!" 

Of boasting, not one bit, boys! 
Only there seemed to settle 
Somehow above your curly heads, 

— Plain through the singing kettle, 20 

Palpable through the cloud, 

As each new-puffed Havana 
Rewarded the teller's well-told tale, — 

This vaunt " To Sport — Hosanna ! 

" Hunt, fish, shoot, 25 

Would a man fulfil life's duty! 
Not to the bodily frame alone 

Does Sport give strength and beauty, 

" But character gains in — courage? 

Ay, sir, and much beside it! 30 

You don't sport, more's the pity; 

You soon would find, if you tried it, 

" Good sportsman means good fellow, 

Sound-hearted he, to the centre; 
Your mealy-mouthed mild milksops 35 

— There's where the rot can enter! 



16 ROBERT BROWNING 

'' There's where the dirt will breed 

The shabbiness Sport would banish! 
Oh no, Sir, no! In your honored case 

All such objections vanish. 40 

" 'Tis known how hard you studied : 

A Double-First — what, the jigger! 
Give nie but half your Latin and Greek, 

I'll never again touch trigger! 

"Still, tastes are tastes, allow me! 45 

Allow, too, where there's keenness 
For Sport, there's little likelihood 

Of a man's displaying meanness!" 

So, put on my mettle, I interposed. 

"Will you hear my story?" quoth I. 50 

" Never mind how long since it happed, 

I sat, as we sit, in a bothy; 

" With as merry a band of mates, too, 

Undergrads all on a level: 
(One's a Bishop, one's gone to the Bench, 55 

And one's gone — well, to the Devil.) 

"When, lo, a scratching and tapping! 

In hobbled a ghastly visitor. 
Listen to just what he told us himself 

— No need of our playing inquisitor!'^ 60 

Do you happen to know in Ross-shire 

Mount Ben . . . but the name scarce matters: 

Of the naked fact I am sure enough. 
Though I clothe it in rags and tatters. 



DONALD 17 

You may recognize Ben by description; 65 

Behind him — a moor's immenseness: 

Up goes the middle mount of a range, 
Fringed with its firs in denseness. 

Rimming the edge, its fir-fringe, mind! 

For an edge there is, though narrow; 70 

From end to end of the range, a strip 

Of path runs straight as an arrow. 

And the mountaineer who takes that path 

Saves himself miles of journey 
He has to plod if he crosses the moor 75 

Through heather, peat, and burnie. 

But a mountaineer he needs must be, 

For, look you, right in the middle 
Projects bluff Ben — with an end in ich — 

Why planted there, is a riddle: 80 

* 
Since all Ben's brothers little and big 

Keep rank, set shoulder to shoulder, 

And only this burliest out must bulge 

Till it seems — to the beholder 

From down in the gully, — as if Ben's breast, 85 

To a sudden spike diminished, 
Would signify to the boldest foot 

" All further passage finished ! " 

Yet the mountaineer who sidles on 

And on to the very bending, 90 

Discovers, if heart and brain be proof, 

No necessary ending. 



18 ROBERT BROWNING 

Foot up, foot down, to the turn abrupt 

Having trod, he, there arriving, 
Finds — what he took for a point was breadth, 95 

A mercy of Nature's contriving. 

So, he rounds what, when 'tis reached, proves straight, 

From one side gains the other: 
The wee path widens — resume the march. 

And he foils you, Ben my brother! 100 

But Donald — (that name, I hope, will do) — 

I wrong him if I call " foiling " 
The tramp of the callant, whistling the while 

As blithe as our kettle's boiling. 

He had dared the danger from boyhood up, 105 

And now, — when perchance was waiting 

A lass at the brig below, — 'twixt mount 
And moor would he stand debating? 

Moreover this Donald w^as twenty-five, 

A glory of bone and muscle: 110 

Did a fiend dispute the right of way, 

Donald would try a tussle. 

Lightsomely marched he out of the broad 

On to the narrow and narrow; 
A step more, rounding the angular rock, 115 

Reached the front straight as an arrow. 

He stepped it, safe on the ledge he stood, 

When — whom found he full-facing? 
What fellow in courage and wariness too. 

Had scouted ignoble pacing, 120 



DONALD . 19 

And left low safety to timid mates, 

And made for the dread dear danger, 
And gained the height where — who could guess 

He would meet with a rival ranger? 

Twas a gold-red stag that stood and stared, 125 

Gigantic and magnific, 
By the wonder — ay, and the peril — struck 

Intelligent and pacific: 

For a red deer is no fallow deer 

Grown cowardly through park-feeding; 130 

He batters you like a thunderbolt 

If you brave his haunts unheeding. 

I doubt he could hardly perform volte-face 

Had valor advised discretion: 
You may walk on a rope, but to turn on a rope 135 

No Blondin makes profession. 

Yet Donald must turn, would pride permit, 

Though pride ill brooks retiring: 
Each eyed each — mute man, motionless beast — 

Less fearing than admiring. 140 

These are the moments when quite new sense, 

To meet some need as novel. 
Springs up in the brain: it inspired resource: 

— " Nor advance nor retreat but — grovel ! " 

And slowly, surely, never a whit 145 

Relaxing the steady tension 
Of eye-stare which binds man to beast, — 

By an inch and inch declension, 



20 ROBERT BROWNING 

Sank Donald sidewise down and down: 

Till flat, breast upwards, lying 150 

At his six-foot length, no corpse more still, 

— "If he cross me! The trick's worth trying." 

Minutes were an eternity'; 

But a new sense was created 
In the stag's brain too; he resolves! Slow, sure, 155 

With eye-stare unabated. 

Feelingly he extends a foot 

Which tastes the way ere it touches 
Earth's solid and just escapes man's soft, 

Nor hold of the same unclutches 160 

Till its fellow foot, light as a feather whisk. 

Lands itself no less finely : 
So a mother removes a fly from the face 

Of her babe asleep supinely. 

And now 'tis the haunch and hind-foot's turn 165 

— That's hard: can the beast quite raise it? 
Yes, traversing half the prostrate length, 

His hoof-tip does not graze it. 

Just one more lift! But Donald, you see, 

Was sportsman first, man after: 170 

A fancy lightened his caution through, 

— He wellnigh broke into laughter: 

" It were nothing short of a miracle ! 

Unrivalled, unexampled — 
All sporting feats with this feat matched 175 

Were down and dead and trampled!" 



DONALD 21 

The last of the legs as tenderly 

Follows the rest : or never 
Or now is the time! His knife in reach, 

And his right-hand loose — how clever! 180 

For this can stab up the stomach's soft, 

While the left-hand grasps the pastern. 
A rise on the elbow, and — now's the time 

Or never: this turn's the last turn! 

I shall dare to place myself by God 185 

Who scanned — for he does — each feature 

Of the face thrown up in appeal to him 
By the agonizing creature. 

Nay, I hear plain words: "Thy gift brings this!" 

Up he sprang, back he staggered, 190 

Over he fell, and with him our friend 

— At following game no laggard. 

Yet he was not dead when they picked next day 
From the gully's depth the wreck of him; 

His fall had been stayed by the stag beneath, 195 

Who cushioned and saved the neck of him. 

But the rest of his body — why, doctors said. 

Whatever could break was broken; 
Legs, arms, ribs, all of him looked like a toast 

In a tumbler of port-wine soaken. 200 

"That your life is left you, thank the stag!" 
Said they when — the slow cure ended — 
They opened the hospital-door, and thence 

— Strapped, spliced, main fractures mended, 



22 ROBERT BROWNING 

And minor damage left wisely alone, — 205 

Like an old shoe clouted and cobbled, 
Out — what went in a Goliath wellnigh, — 

Some half of a David hobbled. 

''You must ask an alms from house to house: 

Sell the stag's head for a bracket, ' 210 

With its grand twelve tines — I'd buy it myself — 
And use the skin for a jacket!" 

He was w^iser, made both head and hide 

His win-penny: hands and knees on, 
Would manage to crawl — poor crab — by the roads 215 

In the misty stalking-season. 

And if he discovered a bothy like this, 

Why, harvest was sure: folk listened. 
He told his tale to the lovers of Sport: 

Lips twitched, cheeks glowed, eyes glistened. 220 

And when he had come to the close, and spread 

His spoils for the gazers' wonder. 
With " Gentlemen, here's the skull of the stag 

I was over, thank God, not under!" — 

The company broke out in applause; 225 

"By Jingo, a lucky cripple! 
Have a munch of grouse and a hunk of bread, 

And a tug, besides, at our tipple!" 

And "There's my pay for your pluck!" cried This, 
"And mine for your jolly story!" 230 

Cried That, while T'other — but he was drunk — 
Hiccupped "A trump, a Tory!" 



HERVE KIEL 23 

I hope I gave twice as much as the rest; 

For, as Homer would say, " within grate 
Though teeth kept tongue," my whole soul growled, 235 

"Rightly rewarded, — Ingrate!" 



HERVE RIEL 

I 

On the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety- 
two. 
Did the English fight the French, — woe to France! 
And, the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter through the 

blue. 
Like a crowd of frightened porpoises a shoal of sharks 
pursue. 
Came crowding ship on ship to Saint Malo on the 
Ranee, 5 

With the English fleet in view. 

II 

Twas the squadron that escaped, with the victor in full 
chase; 
First and foremost of the drove, in his great ship, 
Damfreville ; 
Close on him fled, great and small, 
Twenty-two good ships in all; 10 

And they signalled to the place 
"Help the winners of a race! 

Get us guidance, give us harbor, take us quick — or, 

quicker still. 
Here's the English can and will!" 



24 ROBERT BROWNING 

III 

Then the pilots of the place put out brisk and leapt on 

board; 15 

"Why, what hope or chance have ships like these to 

pass?" laughed they: 

" Rocks to starboard, rocks to port, all the passage scarred 

and scored. 
Shall the 'Formidable^ here with her twelve and eighty 
guns 
Think to make the river-mouth by the single narrow way, 
Trust to enter where 'tis ticklish for a craft of twenty 
tons, 20 

And with flow at full beside? 
Now, 'tis slackest ebb of tide. 
Reach the mooring? Rather say, 
While rock stands or water runs, 

Not a ship will leave the bay!" 25 

IV 

Then was called a council straight. 

Brief and bitter the debate : 

"Here's the English at our heels; would you have them 

take in tow 
All that's left us of the fleet, linked together stern and 

bow. 
For a prize to Plymouth Sound? 30 

Better run the ships aground!" 

(Ended Damfreville his speech). 
"Not a minute more to wait! 
Let the Captains all and each 

Shove ashore, then blow up, burn the vessels on the 
beach ! 35 

France must undergo her fate. 



HERVE KIEL 25 

V 

*' Give the word!" But no such word 
Was ever spoke or heard ; 

For up stood, for out stepped, for in struck amid all 
these 
— A Captain? A Lieutenant? A Mate — first, second, 
third? 40 

No such man of mark, and meet 
With his betters to compete! 

But a simple Breton sailor pressed by Tourville for 
the fleet, 
A poor coasting-pilot he, Herve Riel the Croisickese. 

VI 

And "What mockery or malice have we here?" cries 
Herve Riel: 45 

" Are you mad, you Malouins? Are you cowards, fools, 
or rogues? 
Talk to me of rocks and shoals, me who took the sound- 
ings, tell 
On my fingers every bank, every shallow, every swell 
Twixt the offing here and Greve where the river 
disembogues? 
Are you bought by English gold? Is it love the lying's 
for? 50 

Morn and eve, night and day, 
Have I piloted your bay. 
Entered free and anchored fast at the foot of Solidor. 
Burn the fleet and ruin France? That were worse 
than fifty Hogues! 
Sirs, they know I speak the truth! Sirs, believe me 
there's a way! 55 

Only let me lead the line, 



26 ROBERT BROWNING 

Have the biggest ship to steer, 
Get this ' Formidable ' clear, 
Make the others follow mine, 

And I lead them, most and least, by a passage I know 
well, 60 

Right to Solidor past Greve, 

And there lay them safe and sound; 
And if one ship misbehave, 
— Keel so much as grate the ground, 
Why, I've nothing but my life, — here's my head!" cries 
Herve Riel. 65 

VII 

Not a minute more to wait. 

^' Steer us in, then, small and great! 

Take the helm, lead the line, save the squadron!" cried 
its chief. 
Captains, give the sailor place! 

He is Admiral, in brief. 70 

Still the north-wind, by God's grace! 
See the noble fellow's face 
As the big ship, with a bound, 
Clears the entry like a hound. 

Keeps the passage, as its inch of way were the wide sea's 
profound ! 75 

See, safe through shoal and rock, 

How they follow in a flock, 
Not a ship that misbehaves, not a keel that grates the 
ground, 

Not a spar that comes to grief! 
The peril, see, is past, 80 

All are harbored to the last, 

And just as Herve Riel hollas "Anchor!" — sure as fate. 
Up the English come — too late! 



HERVE KIEL 27 

VIII 

So, the storm subsides to calm: 

They see the green trees wave 85 

On the heights o'erlooking Greve. 
Hearts that bled are stanched with balm. 
" Just our rapture to enhance, 

Let the English rake the bay, 
Gnash their teeth and glare askance 90 

As they cannonade away! 
'Neath rampired Solidor pleasant riding on the Ranee!" 
How hope succeeds despair on each Captain's countenance I 
Out burst all with one accord, 

"This is Paradise for Hell! 95 

Let France, let France's King 
Thank the man that did the thing!'' 
What a shout, and all one word, 

"HerveRiel!" 
As he stepped in front once more, 100 

Not a symptom of surprise 

In the frank blue Breton eyes, 
Just the same man as before. 

IX 

Then said Damfreville, " My friend, 

I must speak out at the end, 105 

Though I find the speaking hard. 
Praise is deeper than the lips: 
You have saved the King his ships, 

You must name your own reward. 
'Faith, our sun was near eclipse! 110 

Demand whate'er you will, 
France remains your debtor still. 

Ask to heart's content and have! or my name's not 
Damfreville." 



28 ROBERT BROWNING 

X 

Then a beam of fun outbroke 

On the bearded mouth that spoke, 115 

As the honest heart laughed through 

Those frank eyes of Breton blue: 

" Since I needs must say my say, 

Since on board the duty's done. 

And from Malo Roads to Croisic Point, what is it but 
a run?— 120 

Since 'tis ask and have, I may — 

Since the others go ashore — 
Come! A good whole holiday! 

Leave to go and see my wife, whom I call the Belle 
Aurore!" 

That he asked and that he got, — nothing more. 125 



XI 

Name and deed alike are lost: 
Not a pillar nor a post 

In his Croisic keeps alive the feat as it befell; 
Not a head in white and black 

On a single fishing-smack, 130 

In memory of the man but for whom had gone to wrack 

All that France saved from the fight whence England 
bore the bell. 
Go to Paris: rank on rank 

Search the heroes flung pell-mell 
On the Louvre, face and flank! 135 

You shall look long enough ere you come to Herve 
Kiel. 
So, for better and for worse, 
Herve Riel, accept my verse! 



PHEIDIPPIDES 29 

In my verse, Herve Riel, do thou once more 
Save the squadron, honor France, love thy wife the Belle 
Aurore ! 140 

PHEIDIPPIDES 

Xaipere, viKw/xev 

First I salute this soil of the blessed, river and rock! 
Gods of my birthplace, daemons and heroes, honor to all! 
Then I name thee, claim thee for our patron, co-equal in 

praise 
— Ay, with Zeus the Defender, with Her of the aegis and 

spear! 
Also, ye of the bow and the buskin, praised be your 

peer, 5 

Now, henceforth and forever, — O latest to whom I 

upraise 
Hand and heart and voice! For Athens, leave pasture 

and flock! 
Present to help, potent to save, Pan — patron I call! 

Archons of Athens, topped by the tettix, see, I return! 
See, 'tis myself here standing alive, no spectre that 

speaks! 10 

Crowned with the myrtle, did you command me, Athens 

and you, 
"Run, Pheidippides, run and race, reach Sparta for aid! 
Persia has come, we are here, where is She?" Your 

command I obeyed, 
Ran and raced: like stubble, some field which a fire runs 

through, 
Was the space between city and city: two days, two 

nights did I burn 15 

Over the hills, under the dales, down pits and up peaks. 



30 ROBERT BROWNING 

Into their midst I broke: breath served but for "Persia 
has come! 

Persia bids Athens proffer slaves'-tribute, water and earth; 

Razed to the ground is Eretria — but Athens, shall 
Athens sink, 

Drop into dust and die — the flower of Hellas utterly 
die, 20 

Die, with the wide world spitting at Sparta, the stupid, 
the stander-by? 

Answer me quick, what help, what hand do you stretch 
o'er destruction's brink? 

How, — when? No care for my limbs! — there's light- 
ning in all and some — 

Fresh and fit your message to bear, once lips give it birth!" 

O my Athens — Sparta love thee? Did Sparta re- 
spond? 25 

Every face of her leered in a furrow of envy, mistrust. 

Malice, — each eye of her gave me its glitter of gratified 
hate! 

Gravely they turned to take counsel, to cast for excuses. 
I stood 

Quivering, — the limbs of me fretting as fire frets, an 
inch from dry wood: 

"Persia has come, Athens asks aid, and still they de- 
bate? 30 

Thunder, thou Zeus! Athene, are Spartans a quarry 
beyond 

Swing of thy spear? Phoibos and Artemis, clang them 
'Ye must'!" 

No bolt launched from Olumpos ! Lo, their answer at last ! 
*' Has Persia come, — does Athens ask aid, — may Sparta 
befriend? 



PHEIDIPPIDES 31 

Nowise precipitate judgment — too weighty the issue at 

stake ! 35 

Count we no time lost time whicii lags through respect 

to the gods! 
Ponder that precept of old, 'No warfare, whatever the 

odds 
In your favor, so long as the moon, half-orbed, is unable 

to take 
Full-circle her state in the sky!' Already she rounds to 

it fast: 
Athens must wait, patient as we — who judgment 

suspend." 40 

Athens, — except for that sparkle, — thy name, I had 

mouldered to ash! 
That sent a blaze through my blood; off, off and away 

was I back, 
— Not one word to w^aste, one look to lose on the false 

and the vile! 
Yet "0 gods of my land!" I cried, as each hillock and 

plain. 
Wood and stream, I knew, I named, rushing past them 

again, 45 

"Have ye kept faith, proved mindful of honors we paid 

you erewhile? 
Vain was the filleted victim, the fulsome libation! Too 

rash 
Love in its choice, paid you so largely service so slack! 

"Oak and olive and bay, — I bid you cease to enwreathe 
Brows made bold by your leaf! Fade at the Persian's 

foot, 50 

You that, our patrons were pledged, should never adorn 

a slave! 



32 ROBERT BROWNING 

Rather I hail thee, Parnes, — trust to thy wild waste 

tract ! 
Treeless, herbless, lifeless mountain! What matter if 

slacked 
My speed may hardly be, for homage to crag and to cave 
No deity deigns to drape with verdure? at least I can 

breathe, 55 

Fear in thee no fraud from the blind, no lie from the 

mute!" 

Such my cry as, rapid, I ran over Parnes' ridge; 
Gully and gap I clambered and cleared till, sudden, a bar 
Jutted, a stoppage of stone against me, blocking the way. 
Right! for I minded the hollow to traverse, the fissure 

across: 60 

"Where I could enter, there I depart by! Night in the 

fosse? 
Athens to aid? Though the dive were through Erebos, 

thus I obey — 
Out of the day dive, into the day as bravely arise! No 

bridge 
Better!" — when — ha! what was it I came on, of 

wonders that are? 

There, in the cool of a cleft, sat he — majestical Pan! 65 
Ivy drooped wanton, kissed his head; moss cushioned his 

hoof : 
All the great god was good in the eyes grave-kindly — 

the curl 
Carved on the bearded cheek, amused at a mortal's awe, 
As, under the human trunk, the goat-thighs grand I 

saw. 
''Halt, Pheidippides ! " — halt I did, my brain of a 

whirl: 70 



PHEIDIPPIDES 33 

"Hither to me! Why pale in my presence?" he gracious 

began : 
" How is it, — Athens, only in Hellas, holds me aloof? 

"Athens, she only, rears me no fane, makes me no feast! 
Wherefore? Than I what godship to Athens more 

helpful of old? 
Ay, and still, and forever her friend! Test Pan, trust 

me! 75 

Go, bid Athens take heart, laugh Persia to scorn, have 

faith 
In the temples and tombs! Go, say to Athens, ^The 

Goat-God saith: 
When Persia — so much as strews not the soil — is cast 

in the sea. 
Then praise Pan who fought in the ranks with your most 

and least, 
Goat-thigh to greaved-thigh, made one cause with the 

free and the bold!' 80 

" Say Pan saith : ' Let this, foreshowing the place, be the 

pledge!'" 
(Gay, the liberal hand held out this herbage I bear 
— Fennel — I grasped it a-tremble with dew — whatever 

it bode) 
"While, as for thee" . . . But enough! He was gone. 

If I ran hitherto — 
Be sure that, the rest of my journey, I ran no longer, but 

flew. 85 

Parnes to Athens — earth no more, the air was my 

road: 
Here am I back. Praise Pan, we stand no more on the 

razor's edge! 
Pan for Athens, Pan for me! I too have a guerdon rare! 



34 ROBERT BROWNING 

Then spoke Miltiades. " And thee, best runner of Greece, 
Whose limbs did duty indeed, — what gift is promised 

thyself? 90 

Tell it us straightway, — Athens the mother demands of 

her son!" 
Rosily blushed the youth: he paused: but, lifting at length 
His eyes from the ground, it seemed as he gathered the 

rest of his strength 
Into the utterance — '' Pan spoke thus : ' For what thou 

hast done 
Count on a worthy reward! Henceforth be allowed thee 

release 95. 

From the racer's toil, no vulgar reward in praise or in 

pelf!' 

'' I am bold to believe, Pan means reward the most to my 

mind! 
Fight I shall, with our foremost, wherever this fennel 

may grow, — 
Pound — Pan helping us — Persia to dust, and, under 

the deep. 
Whelm her away forever; and then, — no Athens to 

save, — 100 

Marry a certain maid, I know keeps faith to the brave, — 
Hie to my house and home: and, when my children shall 

creep 
Close to my knees, — recount how the God was awful 

yet kind, 
Promised their sire reward to the full — rewarding him 

— so!" . 

Unforseeing one! Yes, he fought on the Marathon 
day: 105 

So, when Persia was dust, all cried "To Akropolis' 



ECHETLOS 35 

Run, Pheidippides, one race more! the meed is thy due! 

* Athens is saved, thank Pan/ go shout!" He flung 
down his shield, 

Ran like fire once more: and the space 'twixt the Fennel- 
field 

And Athens was stubble again, a field which a fire runs 
through, 110 

Till in he broke: "Rejoice, we conquer!'' Like wine 
through clay, 

Joy in his blood bursting his heart, he died — the bliss! 

So, to this day, when friend meets friend, the word of 

salute 
Is still "Rejoice!" — his word which brought rejoicing 

indeed. 
So is Pheidippides happy forever, — the noble strong 

man 115 

Who could race like a god, bear the face of a god, whom 

a god loved so well; 
He saw the land saved he had helped to save, and was 

suffered to tell 
Such tidings, yet never decline, but, gloriously as he 

began, 
So to end gloriously — once to shout, thereafter be mute: 
"Athens is saved!" — Pheidippides dies in the shout for 

his meed. 120 

ECHETLOS 

Here is a story, shall stir you! Stand up, Greeks dead 

and gone. 
Who breasted, beat Barbarians, stemmed Persia rolling on. 
Did the deed and saved the world, for the day was 

Marathon ! 



36 ROBERT BROWNING 

No man but did his manliest, kept rank and fought 

away 
In his tribe and file: up, back, out, down — was the 

spear-arm play: 5 

Like a wind-whipt branchy wood, all spear-arms a-swing 

that day! 

But one man kept no rank, and his sole arm plied no 

spear. 
As a flashing came and went, and a form i' the van, the 

rear, 
Brightened the battle up, for he blazed now there, now 

here. 

Nor helmed nor shielded, he! but, a goat-skin all his 
wear, 10 

Like a tiller of the soil, with a clown's limbs broad and 
bare, 

Went he ploughing on and on: he pushed with a plough- 
man's share. 

Did the weak mid-line give way, as tunnies on whom the 
shark 

Precipitates his bulk? Did the right-wing halt when, 
stark 

On his heap of slain lay stretched Kallimachos Pole- 
march? 15 

Did the steady phalanx falter? To the rescue, at the 

need, 
The clown was ploughing Persia, clearing Greek earth of 

weed, 
As he routed through the Sakian and rooted up the Mede. 



THE PATRIOT 37 

But the deed done, battle won, — nowhere to be de- 
scried 

On the meadow, by the stream, at the marsh, — look far 
and wide 20 

From the foot of the mountain, no, to the last blood- 
plashed sea-side, — 

Not anywhere on view blazed the large limbs thonged 

and brown, 
Shearing and clearing still with the share before which 

— down 
To the dust went Persia's pomp, as he ploughed for 

Greece, that clown! 

How spake the Oracle? "Care for no name at all! 25 
Say but just this: 'We praise one helpful whom we call 
The Holder of the Ploughshare.' The great deed ne'er 
grows small." 

Not the great name ! Sing — woe for the great name 

Miltiades 
And its end at Paros isle! Woe for Themistokles 
— Satrap in Sardis court! Name not the clown like 

these! 30 

THE PATRIOT 

AN OLD STORY 1 



It was roses, roses, all the way. 

With myrtle mixed in my path like mad: 

The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway. 
The church-spires flamed, such flags they had, 

A year ago on this very day. 



38 ROBERT BROWNING 

The air broke into a mist with bells, 

The old walls rocked with the crowd and cries. 

Had I said, " Good folk, mere noise repels — 
But give me your sun from yonder skies!" 

They had answered, "And afterward, what else?'* 10 

Alack, it was I who leaped at the sun 

To give it my loving friends to keep! 
Naught man could do, have I left undone: 

And you see my harvest, what I reap 
This very day, now a year is run. 15 

There's nobody on the house-tops now — 

Just a palsied few at the windows set; 
For the best of the sight is, all allow. 

At the Shambles' Gate — or, better yet, 
By the very scaffold's foot, I trow. 20 

I go in the rain, and, more than needs, 

A rope cuts both my wrists behind ; 
And I think, by the feel, my forehead bleeds, 

For they fling, whoever has a mind. 
Stones at me for my year's misdeeds. 25 

Thus I entered, and thus I go! 

In triumphs, people have dropped down dead. 
*' Paid by the world, what dost thou owe 

Me?" — God might question; now instead, 
'Tis God shall repay : I am safer so. 30 



COUNT GISMOND 39 

COUNT GISMOND 

AIX IN PROVENCE 

Christ God who savest man, save most 
Of men Count Gismond who saved me! 

Count Gauthier, when he chose his post, 
Chose time and place and company 

To suit it; when he struck at length 5 

My honor, 'twas with all his strength. 

And doubtlessly ere he could draw 

All points to one, he must have schemed! 

That miserable morning saw 

Few half so happy as I seemed, 10 

While being dressed in queen's array 

To give our tourney prize away. 

I thought they loved me, did me grace 
To please themselves; 'twas all their deed; 

God makes, or fair or foul, our face; 15 

If showing mine so caused to bleed 

My cousins' hearts, they should have dropped - 

A word, and straight the play had stopped. 

They, too, so beauteous! Each a queen 

By virtue of her brow and breast; 20 

Not needing to be crowned, I mean. 
As I do. E'en when I was dressed. 

Had either of them spoke, instead 

Of glancing sideways with still head ! 

But no: they let me laugh, and sing 25 

My birthday song quite through, adjust 

The last rose in my garland, fling 
A last look on the mirror, trust 



40 ROBERT BROWNING 

My arms to each an arm of theirs, 

And so descend the castle-stairs — 30 

And come out on the morning-troop 
Of merry friends who kissed my cheek, 

And called me queen, and made me stoop 
Under the canopy — (a streak 

That pierced it, of the outside sun, 35 

Powdered with gold its gloom's soft dun) — 

And they could let me take my state 

And foolish throne amid applause 
Of all come there to celebrate 

My queen's-day — Oh I think the cause 40 

Of much was, they forgot no crowd 
Makes up for parents in their shroud! 

Howe'er that be, all eyes were bent 

Upon me, when my cousins cast 
Theirs down; 't was time I should present 45 

The victor's crown, but . . . there, 'twill last 
No long time . . . the old mist again 
Blinds me as then it did. How vain! 

See! Gismond's at the gate, in talk 

With his two boys: I can proceed. 50 

Well, at that moment, who should stalk 

Forth boldly — to my face, indeed — 
But Gauthier, and he thundered, "Stay!" 
And all stayed. " Bring no crowns, I say! 

" Bring torches ! Wind the penance-sheet 55 

About her! Let her shun the chaste, 

Or lay herself before their feet ! 
Shall she whose body I embraced 



COUNT GISMOND 41 

A night long, queen it in the day? 

For honor's sake no crowns, I say!" 60 

I? What I answered? As I live, 

I never fancied such a thing 
As answer possible to give. 

What says the body when they spring 
Some monstrous torture-engine's whole 65 

Strength on it? No more says the soul. 

Till out strode Gismond; then I knew 

That I was saved. I never met 
His face before, but, at first view, 

I felt quite sure that God had set 70 

Himself to Satan; who would spend 
A minute's mistrust on the end? 

He strode to Gauthier, in his throat 

Gave him the lie, then struck his mouth 

With one back-handed blow that wrote 75 

In blood men's verdict there. North, South, 

East, West, I looked. The lie was dead. 

And damned, and truth stood up instead. 

This glads me most, that I enjoyed 

The heart of the joy, with my content 80 

In watching Gismond unalloyed 

By any doubt of the event: 
God took that on him — I was bid 
Watch Gismond for my part: I did. 

Did I not watch him while he let 85 

His armorer just brace his greaves, 
Rivet his hauberk, on the fret 

The while! His foot . . . my memory leaves 



42 ROBERT BROWNING 

No least stamp out, nor how anon 

He pulled his ringing gauntlets on. 90 

And e'en before the trumpet's sound 
Was finished, prone lay the false knight, 

Prone as his lie, upon the ground: 
Gismond flew at him, used no sleight 

O' the sword, but open-breasted drove, 95 

Cleaving till out the truth he clove. 

Which done, he dragged him to my feet 
And said, " Here die, but end thy breath 

In full confession, lest thou fleet 

From my first, to God's second death! 100 

Say, hast thou lied?" And, "I have lied 

To God and her," he said, and died. 

Then Gismond, kneeling to me, asked 

— What safe my heart holds, though no word 

Could I repeat now, if I tasked 105 

My powers forever, to a third 

Dear even as you are. Pass the rest 

Until I sank upon his breast. 

Over my head his arm he flung 

Against the world; and scarce I felt 110 

His sword (that dripped by me and swung) 

A little shifted in its belt: 
For he began to say the while 
How South our home lay many a mile. 

So 'mid the shouting multitude 115 

We two walked forth to never more 
Return. My cousins have pursued 

Their life, untroubled as before 



THE TWINS 43 

I vexed them. Gauthier's dwelling-place 

God lighten! May his soul find grace! 120 

Our elder boy has got the clear 

Great brow; though when his brother's black 
Full eye shows scorn, it . . . Gismond here? 

And have you brought my tercel back? 
I just was telling Adela 125 

How many birds it struck since May. 



THE TWINS 

" Give " and " It-shall-be-given-unto-you " 

Grand rough old Martin Luther 
Bloomed fables — flowers on furze, 

The better the uncouther: 
Do roses stick like burrs? 

A beggar asked an alms 5 

One day at an abbey-door, 
Said Luther, but, seized with qualms, 

The Abbot replied, "We're poor! 

" Poor, who had plenty once. 

When gifts fell thick as rain: 10 

But they give us naught, for the nonce, 

And how should we give again?" 

Then the beggar, " See your sins ! 

Of old, unless I err, 
Ye had brothers for inmates, twins, 15 

Date and Dabitur. 



44 ROBERT BROWNING 

" While Date was in good case 

Dabitur flourished too: 
For Dabitur's lenten face 

No wonder if Date rue. 20 

"Would ye retrieve the one? 

Try and make plump the other! 
When Date's penance is done, 

Dabitur helps his brother. 

"Only, beware relapse!" 25 

The Abbot hung his head. 
This beggar might be perhaps 

An angel, Luther said. 

THE BOY AND THE ANGEL 

Morning, evening, noon and night, 
"Praise God!" sang Theocrite. 

Then to his poor trade he turned. 
Whereby the daily meal was earned. 

Hard he labored, long and well; 5 

O'er his work the boy's curls fell. 

But ever, at each period, 

He stopped and sang, "Praise God!" 

Then back again his curls he threw, 

And cheerful turned to work anew. 10 

Said Blaise, the listening monk, "Well done; 
I doubt not thou art heard, my son: 



THE BOY AND THE ANGEL 45 

" As well as if thy voice to-day 

Were praising God, the Pope's great way. 

"This Easter Day, the Pope at Rome 15 

Praises God from Peter's dome." 

Said Theocrite, " Would God that I 

Might praise him that great way, and die ! '* 

Night passed, day shone. 

And Theocrite was gone. 20 

With God a day endures alway; 
A thousand years are but a day. 

God said in heaven, " Nor day nor night 
Now brings the voice of my delight." 

Then Gabriel, like a rainbow's birth, 25 

Spread his wings and sank to earth; 

Entered, in flesh, the empty cell. 

Lived there, and played the craftsman well; 

And morning, evening, noon and night, 

Praised God in place of Theocrite. 30 

And from a boy, to youth he grew: 
The man put off the stripling's hue: 

The man matured and fell away 
Into the season of decay: 

And ever o'er the trade he bent, 35 

And ever lived on earth content. 



46 ROBERT BROWNING 

(He did God's will; to him, all one 
If on the earth or in the sun.) 

God said, " A praise is in mine ear; 

There is no doubt in it, no fear: 40 

" So sing old worlds, and so 

New worlds that from my footstool go. 

•' Clearer loves sound other ways : 
I miss my little human praise." 

Then forth sprang Gabriel's wings, off fell 45 

The flesh disguise, remained the cell. 

Twas Easter Day: he flew to Rome, 
And paused above Saint Peter's dome. 

In the tiring-room close by 

The great outer gallery, 50 

With his holy vestments dight, 
Stood the new Pope, Theocrite: 

And all his past career 
Came back upon him clear, 

Since when, a boy, he plied his trade, 55 

Till on his life the sickness weighed; 

And in his cell, when death drew near, 
An angel in a dream brought cheer: 

And rising from the sickness drear, 

He grew a priest, and now stood here. 60 



MY LAST DUCHESS 47 

To the East with praise he turned, 
And on his sight the angel burned. 

" I bore thee from thy craftsman's cell. 
And set thee here; I did not well. 

"Vainly I left my angel-sphere; 65 

Vain was thy dream of many a year. 

"Thy voice's praise seemed weak; dropped — 
Creation's chorus stopped! 

" Go back and praise again 

The early way, while I remain. 70 

" With that weak voice of our disdain, 
Take up creation's pausing strain. 

" Back to the cell and poor employ: 
Resume the craftsman and the boy!'' 

Theocrite grew old at home; 75 

A new Pope dwelt in Peter's dome. 

One vanished as the other died: 
They sought God side by side. 



MY LAST DUCHESS 

FERRARA 

That's my last Duchess painted on the wall, 
Looking as if she were alive. I call 
That piece a wonder, now: Era Pandolf's hands 
Worked busily a day, and there she stands. 



48 ROBERT BROWNING 

Wiirt please you sit and look at her? I said 5 

"Fra Pandolf" by design; for never read 

Strangers like you that pictured countenance, 

The depth and passion of its earnest glance, 

But to myself they turned (since none puts by 

The curtain I have drawn for you, but I) 10 

And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst, 

How such a glance came there; so, not the first 

Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 't was not 

Her hiusband's presence only called that spot 

Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps 15 

Fra Pandolf chanced to say, " Her mantle laps 

Over my lady's wrist too much," or " Paint 

Must never hope to reproduce the faint 

Half-flush that dies along her throat:" such stuff 

Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough 20 

For calling up that spot of joy. She had 

A heart — how shall I say? — too soon made glad, 

Too easily impressed : she liked whate'er 

She looked on, and her looks went everywhere. 

Sir, 'twas all one! My favor at her breast, 25 

The dropping of the daylight in the West, 

The bough of cherries some officious fool 

Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule 

She rode with round the terrace — all and each 

Would draw from her alike the approving speech, 30 

Or blush, at least. She thanked men, — good ! but thanked 

Somehow — I know not how — as if she ranked 

My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name 

With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame 

This sort of trifling? Even had you skill 35 

In speech — (which I have not) — to make your will 

Quite clear to such an one, and say, " Just this 

Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss, 



A FACE 49 

Or there exceed the mark " — and if she let 

Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set 40 

Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse, 

— E'en then would be some stooping; and I choose 

Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt. 

Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without 

Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands; 45 

Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands 

As if alive. Will't please you rise? We'll meet 

The company below, then. I repeat. 

The Count your master's known munificence 

Is ample warrant that no just pretence 50 

Of mine for dowry will be disallowed; 

Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed 

At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go 

Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though, 

Taming a sea-horse,^ thought a rarity, 55 

Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me! 



A FACE 

If one could have that little head of hers 

Painted upon a background of pale gold. 

Such as the Tuscan's early art prefers ! 

No shade encroaching on the matchless mould 

Of those two lips, which should be opening soft 5 

In the pure profile ; not as when she laughs, 

For that spoils all : but rather as if aloft 

Yon hyacinth, she loves so, leaned its staff's 

Burden of honey-colored buds to kiss 

And capture 'twixt the lips apart for this. 10 

Then her lithe neck, three fingers might surround, 

How it should waver on the pale gold ground 



50 ROBERT BROWNING 

Up to the fruit-shaped, perfect chin it hftsi 

I know, Correggio loves to mass, in rifts 

Of heaven, his angel faces, orb on orb 15 

Breaking its outline, burning shades absorb: 

But these are only massed there, I should think, 

Waiting to see some wonder momently 

Grow out, stand full, fade slow against the sky 

(That's the pale ground you'd see this sweet face by), 20 

All heaven, meanwhile, condensed into one eye 

Which fears to lose the wonder, should it wink. 

SONG FROM PIPPA PASSES 

The year's at the spring 

And day's at the morn; 

Morning's at seven; 

The hillside's dew-pearl'd; 

The lark's on the wing; 5 

The snail's on the thorn: 

God's in his heaven — 

All's right with the world! 

CAVALIER TUNES 
I. Marching Along 

Kentish Sir Byng stood for his King, 

Bidding the crop-headed Parliament swing: 

And, pressing a troop unable to stoop 

And see the rogues flourish and honest folk droop, 

Marched them along, fifty-score strong, 5 

Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song. 

God for King Charles ! Pym and such carles 

To the Devil that prompts 'em their treasonous paries! 



CAVALIER TUNES 51 

Cavaliers, up! Lips from the cup, 

Hands from the pasty, nor bite take nor sup 10 

Till you're — 

Chorus. — Marching along, fifty-score strong, 

Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song. 

Hampden to hell, and his obsequies' knell. 
Serve Hazelrig, Fiennes, and young Harry as well! 15 
England, good cheer! Rupert is near! 
Kentish and loyalists, keep we not here, 
Cho. — Marching along, fifty-score strong, 

Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song? 

Then, God for King Charles! Pym and his snarls 20 

To the Devil that pricks on such pestilent carles! 
Hold by the right, you double your might; 
So, onward to Nottingham, fresh for the fight, 
Cho. — March we along, fifty-score strong, 

Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song ! 25 

II. Give a Rouse 

King Charles, and who'll do him right now? 
King Charles, and who's ripe for fight now? 
Give a rouse: here's, in hell's despite now, 
King Charles! 

Who gave me the goods that went since? 5 

Who raised me the house that sank once? 

Who helped me to gold I spent since? 

Who found me in wine you drank once? 

Cho. — King Charles, and who'll do him right now? 

King Charles, and who's ripe for fight now? 10 
Give a rouse: here's, in hell's despite now, 
King Charles! 



52 ROBERT BROWNING 

To whom used my boy George quaff else, 

By the old fool's side that begot him? 

For whom did he cheer and laugh else, 15 

While Noll's damned troopers shot him? 

Cho. — King Charles, and who'll do him right now? 
King Charles, and who's ripe for fight now? 
Give a rouse: here's, in hell's despite now, 
King Charles! 20 



III. Boot and Saddle 

Boot, saddle, to horse, and away! 
Rescue my castle before the hot day 
Brightens to blue its silvery gray. 
Cho. — Boot, saddle, to horse, and awa^ 

Ride past the suburbs, asleep as you'd say; 5 

Many's.the friend there, will listen and pray 
" God's luck to gallants that strike up the lay — 
Cho. — Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!" 

Forty miles off, like a roebuck at bay. 
Flouts Castle Brancepeth the Roundheads' array: 10 

Who laughs, " Good fellows ere this, by my fay, 
Cho. — Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!" 

Who? My wife Gertrude, that, honest and gay, 
Laughs when you talk of surrendering: "Nay! 
I've better counsellors; what counsel they? 15 

Cho. — Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!" 



HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM THE SEA 53 



HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM ABROAD 

Oh, to be in England 

Now that April's there; 

And whoever wakes in England 

Sees, some morning, unaware, 

That the lowest boughs and the brush-wood sheaf 5 

Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf, 

While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough 

In England — now ! 

And after April, when May follows. 

And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows! 10 

Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge 

Leans to the field and scatters on the clover 

Blossoms and dewdrops — at the bent spray's edge — 

That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over. 

Lest you should think he never could recapture 15 

The first fine careless rapture! 

And though the fields look rough with hoary dew, 

All will be gay when noontide wakes anew 

The buttercups, the little children's dower 

— Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower! 20 

HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM THE SEA 

Nobly, nobly Cape Saint Vincent to the Northwest died 

away; 
Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz 

Bay; 
Bluish 'mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay; 
In the dimmest Northeast distance dawned Gibraltar 
grand and gray; 



54 ROBERT BROWNING 

''Here and here did England help me: how can I help 
England?" — say, 5 

Whoso turns as I, this evening, turn to God to praise and 
pray. 

While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa. 

"DE GUSTIBUS— '' 

Your ghost will walk, you lover of trees, 

(If our loves remain) 

In an English lane. 
By a cornfield-side a-flutter with poppies. 
Hark, those two in the hazel coppice — 5 

A boy and a girl, if the good fates please. 

Making love, say, — 

The happier they! 
Draw yourself up from the light of the moon, 
And let them pass, as they will too soon, 10 

With the beanfiowers' boon, 

And the blackbird's tune, 

And May, and June! 

What I love best in all the world 

Is a castle, precipice-encurled, 15 

In a gash of the wind-grieved Apennine. 

Or look for me, old fellow of mine, 

(If I get my head from out the mouth 

O' the grave, and loose my spirit's bands. 

And come again to the land of lands) — 20 

In a sea-side house to the farther South, 

Where the baked cicala dies of drouth. 

And one sharp tree — 'tis a cypress — stands 

By the many hundred years red-rusted, 

Rough iron-spiked, ripe fruit-o'ercrusted, 25 



UP AT A VILLA — DOWN IN THE CITY 55 

My sentinel to guard the sands 

To the water's edge. For, what expands 

Before the house, but the great opaque 

Blue breadth of sea without a break? 

While, in the house, forever crumbles 30 

Some fragment of the frescoed walls, 

From blisters where a scorpion sprawls. 

A girl bare-footed brings, and tumbles 

Down on the pavement, green-flesh melons, 

And says there's news to-day — the king 35 

Was shot at, touched in the liver-wing, 

Goes with his Bourbon arm in a sling: 

— She hopes they have not caught the felons. 

Italy, my Italy! 

Queen Mary's saying serves for me — 40 

(When fortune's malice 

Lost her, Calais) 
Open my heart and you will see 
Graved inside of it, " Italy." 

Such lovers old are I and she: 45 

So it always was, so shall ever be! 



UP AT A VILLA — DOWN IN THE CITY^ 

(as distinguished by an ITALIAN PERSON OF QUALITY.) 

I 

Had I but plenty of money, money enough and to spare, 
The house for me, no doubt, were a house in the city- 
square; 
Ah, such a life, such a life, as one leads at the window 

there ! 

I See note on page 113 



56 ROBERT BROWNING 

II 

Something to see, by Bacchus, something to hear, at least ! 
There, the whole day long, one's Hfe is a perfect feast; 5 
While up at a villa one Hves, I maintain it, no more than 
a beast. 

Ill 

Well now, look at our villa! stuck Hke the horn of a bull 
Just on a mountain edge as bare as the creature's skull. 
Save a mere shag of a bush with hardly a leaf to pull! 
— I scratch my own, sometimes, to see if the hair's 
turned wool. 10 

IV 

But the city, oh the city — the square with the houses! 

Why! 
They are stone-faced, white as a curd, there's something 

to take the eye! 
Houses in four straight lines, not a single front awry; 
You watch who crosses and gossips, who saunters, who 

hurries by; 
Green blinds, as a matter of course, to draw when the 

sun gets high; 15 

And the shops with fanciful signs which are painted 

properly. 

V 

What of a villa? Though winter be over in March by 

rights, 
'Tis May perhaps ere the snow shall have withered well 

off the heights: 
You've the brown ploughed land before, where the oxen 

steam and wheeze. 
And the hills over-smoked behind by the faint gray 

olive-trees. 20 



UP AT A VILLA — DOWN IN THE CITY 57 

VI 

Is it better in May, I ask you? You've summer all at 

once; 
In a day he leaps complete with a few strong April suns. 
'Mid the sharp short emerald wheat, scarce risen three 

fingers well. 
The wild tuhp, at end of its tube, blows out its great red 

bell 
Like a thin clear bubble of blood, for the children to pick 

and sell. 25 

VII 

Is it ever hot in the square? There's a fountain to spout 
and splash! 

In the shade it sings and springs; in the shine such foam- 
bows flash 

On the horses with curHng fish-tails, that prance and 
paddle and pash 

Round the lady atop in her conch — fifty gazers do not 
abash, 

Though all that she wears is some weeds round her waist 
in a sort of sash. 30 

VIII 

All the year long at the villa, nothing to see though you 

finger. 
Except yon cypress that points fike death's lean fifted 

forefinger. 
Some think fireflies pretty, when they mix i' the corn and 

mingle, 
Or thrid the stinking hemp till the stalks of it seem a- 

tingle. 
Late August or early September, the stunning cicala is 

shrill, • 35 



58 ROBERT BROWNING 

And the bees keep their tiresome whine round the resin- 
ous firs on the hill. 

Enough of the seasons, — I spare you the months of the 
fever and chill. 

IX 

Ere you open your eyes in the city, the blessed church- 
bells begin : 

No sooner the bells leave off than the dihgence rattles in : 

You get the pick of the news, and it costs you never a 
pin. 40 

By and by there's the travelHng doctor gives pills, lets 
blood, draws teeth 

Or the Pulcinello-trumpet breaks up the market beneath. 

At the post-office such a scene-picture — the new play, 
piping hot! 

And a notice how, only this morning, three liberal thieves 
were shot. 

Above it, behold the Archbishop's most fatherly of re- 
bukes, 45 

And beneath, with his crown and his Hon, some httle new 
law of the Duke's! 

Or a sonnet with flowery marge, to the Reverend Don 
So-and-so 

Who is Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarca, St. Jerome, and 
Cicero, 

''And moreover" (the sonnet goes rhyming), " the skirts 
of Saint Paul has reached, 

Having preached us those six Lent-lectures more unctu- 
ous than ever he preached." 50 

Noon strikes, — here sweeps the procession ! our Lady 
borne smiling and smart, 

With a pink gauze gown all spangles, and seven swords 
stuck in her heart! 



UP AT A VILLA— DOWN IN THE CITY 59 

Bang-whang-whang goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the fife; 
No keeping one's haunches still: it's the greatest pleasure 
in life. 

X 

But bless you, it's dear — it's dear! fowls, wine, at double 

the rate. 55 

They have clapped a new tax upon salt, and what oil pays 

passing the gate 
It's a horror to think of. And so, the villa for me, not 

the city ! 
Beggars can scarcely be choosers: but still — ah, the pity, 

the pity! 
Look, two and two go the priests, then the monks with 

cowls and sandals, 
And the penitents dressed in white shirts, a-holding the 

yellow candles; 60 

One, he carries a flag up straight, and another a cross 

with handles, 
And the Duke's guard brings up the rear, for the better 

prevention of scandals: 
Bang-whang-whang goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the fife. 
Oh, a day in the city-square, there is no such pleasure in 

life! 

MEMORABILIA 

Ah, did you once see Shelley plain, 
And did he stop and speak to you, 

And did you speak to him again? 
How strange it seems and new! 

But you were living before that, 5 

And also you are living after; 
And the memory I started at — 

My starting moves your laughter! 



60 ROBERT BROWNING 

I crossed a moor, with a name of its own 

And a certain use in the world no doubt, 10 

Yet a hand's-breadth of it shines alone 
^Mid the blank miles round about: 

For there I picked up on the heather, 

And there I put inside my breast 
A moulted feather, an eagle-feather! 15 

Well, I forget the rest. 



THE LOST LEADER 

Just for a handful of silver he left us. 

Just for a riband to stick in his coat — 
Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us, 

Lost all the others she lets us devote; 
They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver; 5 

So much was theirs who so little allowed: 
How all our copper had gone for his service! 

Rags — were they purple, his heart had been proud! 
We that had loved him so, followed him, honored him, 

Lived in his mild and magnificent eye, 10 

Learned his great language, caught his clear accents, 

Made him our pattern to live and to die! 
Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us. 

Burns, Shelley, w^ere with us, — they watch from their 
graves! 
He alone breaks from the van and the freemen, 15 

— He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves! 

We shall march prospering, — not through his presence; 

Songs may inspirit us, — not from his lyre; 
Deeds will be done, — while he boasts his quiescence, 

Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire: 20 



LIFE IN A LOVE 61 

Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more, 

One task more declined, one more footpath untrod. 
One more devils'-triumph and sorrow for angels. 

One wrong more to man, one more insult to God! 
Life's night begins: let him never come back to us! 25 

There would be doubt, hesitation and pain; 
Forced praise on our part — the glimmer of twilight, 

Never glad confident morning again! 
Best fight on well, for we taught him — strike gallantly, 

Menace our heart ere we master his own; 30 

Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us, 

Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne! 



LIFE IN A LOVE 

Escape me? 
Never — 
Beloved ! 
While I am I, and you are you, 

So long as the world contains us both, 5 

Me the loving and you the loth. 
While the one eludes, must the other pursue. 
My life is a fault at last, I fear: 

It seems too much like a fate, indeed! 

Though I do my best I shall scarce succeed. 10 
But what if I fail of my purpose here? 
It is but to keep the nerves at strain, 

To dry one's eyes and laugh at a fall. 
And baffled, get up and begin again, — 

So the chase takes up one's life, that's all. 15 

While, look but once from your farthest bound 

At me so deep in the dust and dark. 
No sooner the old hope goes to ground 



ROBERT BROWNING 

Than a new one, straight to the selfsame mark, 
I shape me — 20 

Ever 
Removed I 

YOUTH AND ART 

It once might have been, once only: 

We lodged in a street together, 
You, a sparrow on the housetop lonely, 

I, a lone she-bird of his feather. 

Your trade was with sticks and clay, 5 

You thumbed, thrust, patted and polished, 

Then laughed " They will see some day 
Smith made, and Gibson demolished." 

My business was song, song, song; 

I chirped, cheeped, trilled and twittered; 10 

" Kate Brown's on the boards ere long, 

And Grisi's existence embittered! 

I earned no more by a warble 

Than you by a sketch in plaster; 
You wanted a piece of marble, 15 

I needed a music-master. 

We studied hard in our styles. 

Chipped each at a crust like Hindoos, 

For air, looked out on the tiles, 

For fun, watched each other's windows. 20 

You lounged, like a boy of the South, 

Cap and blouse — nay, a bit of beard too; 

Or you got it, rubbing your mouth 
With fingers the clay adhered to. 



YOUTH AND ART 63 

And I — soon managed to find 25 

Weak points in the flower-fence facing, 

Was forced to put up a blind 
And be safe in my corset-lacing. 

No harm! It was not my fault 

If you never turned your eye's tail up 30 

As I shook upon E in alt., 

Or ran the chromatic scale up: 

For spring bade the sparrows pair, 

And the boys and girls gave guesses, 
And stalls in our street looked rare 35 

With bulrush and watercresses. 

Why did not you pinch a flower 

In a pellet of clay and fling it? 
Why did not I put a power 

Of thanks in a look, or sing it? 40 

I did look, sharp as a lynx, 

(And yet the memory rankles,) 
When models arrived, some minx 
. Tripped up-stairs, she and her ankles. 

But I think I gave you as good ! 45 

" That foreign fellow, — who can know 

How she pays, in a playful mood. 
For his tuning her that piano?" 

Could you say so, and never say, 

" Suppose we join hands and fortunes, 50 

And I fetch her from over the way. 

Her, piano, and long tunes and short tunes"? 



G4 ROBERT BROWNING 

No, no: you would not be rash, 

Nor I rasher and something over: 
You've to settle yet Gibson's hash, 55 

And Grisi yet lives in clover. 

But you meet the Prince at the Board, 

I'm queen myself at hals-pare, 
I've married a rich old lord, 

And you're dubbed knight and an R. A. 6.0 

Each life unfulfilled, you see; 

It hangs still, patchy and scrappy: 
We have not sighed deep, laughed free. 

Starved, feasted, despaired, — been happy; 

And nobody calls you a dunce, 65 

And people suppose me clever: 
This could but have happened once, 

And we missed it, lost it forever. 



EVELYN HOPE 

Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead ! 

Sit and watch by her side an hour. 
That is her book-shelf, this her bed ; 

She plucked that piece of geranium-flower, 
Beginning to die too, in the glass; 5 

Little has yet been changed, I think: 
The shutters are shut, no light may pass 

Save two long rays through the hinge's chink. 

Sixteen years old when she died ! 

Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name; 10 

It was not her time to love; beside. 

Her life had many a hope and aim, 



EVELYN HOPE G5 

Duties enough and little cares, 

And now was quiet, now astir, 
Till God's hand beckoned unawares, — 15 

And the sweet white brow is all of her. 

Is it too late then, Evelyn Hope? 

What, your soul was pure and true, 
The good stars met in your horoscope, 

Made you of spirit, fire and dew — 20 

And, just because I was thrice as old 

And our paths in the world diverged so wide, 
Each was naught to each, must I be told? 

We were fellow mortals, naught beside? 

No, indeed! for God above 25 

Is great to grant, as mighty to make, 
And creates the love to reward the love: 

I claim you still, for my own love's sake! 
Delayed it may be for more lives yet. 

Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few: 30 

Much is to learn, much to forget 

Ere the time be come for taking you. 

But the time will come, — at last it will, 

When, Evelyn Hope, what meant (I shall say) 
In the lower earth, in the years long still, 35 

That body and soul so pure and gay? 
Why your hair was amber, I shall divine, 

And your mouth of your own geranium's red — 
And what you would do with me, in fine, 

In the new life come in the old one's stead. 40 

I have lived (I shall say) so much since then, 

Given up myself so many times. 
Gained me the gains of various men, 

Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes; 



66 ROBERT BROWNING 

Yet one thing, one, in my soul's full scope, 45 

Either I missed or itself missed me : 
And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope! 

What is the issue? let us see! 

I loved you, Evelyn, all the while! 

My heart seemed full as it could hold; 50 

There was place and to spare for the frank young smile, 

And the red young mouth, and the hair's young gold. 
So, hush, — I will give you this leaf to keep : 

See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand! 
There, that is our secret: go to sleep! 55 

You will wake, and remember, and understand. 

SOLILOQUY OF THE SPANISH CLOISTER 

Gr-r-r — there go, my heart's abhorrence! 

Water your damned flower-pots, do! 
If hate killed men, Brother Lawrence, 

God's blood, would not mine kill you! 
What? your myrtle-bush wants trimming? 5 

Oh, that rose has prior claims — 
Needs its leaden vase filled brimming? 

Hell dry you up with its flames! 

At the meal we sit together: 

Salve tibif I must hear 10 

Wise talk of the kind of weather, 

Sort of season, time of year: 
Not a plenteous cork-crop: scarcely 

Dare we hope oak-galls, I doubt: 
What's the Latin name for ^' parsley" P 15 

What's the Greek name for Swine's Snout? 



SOLILOQUY OF THE SPANISH CLOISTER 67 

Whew! We'll have our platter burnished, 

Laid with care on our own shelf! 
With a fire-new spoon we're furnished, 

And a goblet for ourself, 20 

Rinsed like something sacrificial 

Ere 'tis fit to touch our chaps — 
Marked with L for our initial! 

(He-he ! There his lily snaps !) 

Saint, forsooth! While brown Dolores 25 

Squats outside the Convent bank 
With Sanchicha, telling stories, 

Steeping tresses in the tank, 
Blue-black, lustrous, thick like horsehairs, 

— Can't I see his dead eye glow, 30 

Bright as 't were a Barbary corsair's? 

(That is, if he'd let it show!) 

When he finishes refection, 

Knife and fork he never lays 
Cross-wise, to my recollection, 35 

As do I, in Jesu's praise. 
I the Trinity illustrate. 

Drinking watered orange-pulp — 
In three sips the Arian frustrate; 

While he drains his at one gulp. 40 

Oh, those melons! If he's able 

We're to have a feast! so nice! 
One goes to the Abbot's table, 

All of us get each a slice. 
How go on your flowers? None double? 45 

Not one fruit-sort can you spy? 
Strange! — And I, too, at such trouble 

Keep them close-nipped on the sly! 



68 ROBERT BROWNING 

There's a great text in Galatians, 

Once you trip on it, entails 50 

Twenty-nine distinct damnations, 

One sure, if another fails : 
If I trip him just a-dying, 

Sure of heaven as sure can be. 
Spin him round and send him flying 55 

Off to hell, a Manichee? 

Or, my scrofulous French novel 

On gray paper with blunt type! 
Simply glance at it, you grovel 

Hand and foot in Belial's gripe: 60 

If I double down its pages 

At the woeful sixteenth print, 
When he gathers his greengages, 

Ope a sieve and slip it in't? 

Or, there's Satan! — one might venture 65 

Pledge one's soul to him, yet leave 
Such a flaw in the indenture 

As he'd miss till, past retrieve. 
Blasted lay that rose-acacia 

We're so proud of! Hy, Zy, Hine ... 70 

'St, there's Vespers! Plena gratia, 

Ave, Virgo! Gr-r-r — you swine ! 

A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL 

SHORTLY AFTER THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING IN EUROPE 

Let us begin and carry up this corpse, 

Singing together. 
Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes 

Each in its tether 



A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL 09 

Sleeping safe on the bosom of the plain, 5 

Cared-for till cock-crow: 
Look out if yonder be not day again 

Rimming the rock-row! 
That's the appropriate country; there, man's thought, 

Rarer, intenser, 10 

Self-gathered for an outbreak, as it ought, 

Chafes in the censer. 
Leave we the unlettered plain its herd and crop; 

Seek we sepulture 
On a tall mountain, citied to the top, 15 

Crowded with culture! 
All the peaks soar, but one the rest excels; 

Clouds overcome it; 
No! yonder sparkle is the citadel's 

Circling its summit. 20 

Thither our path lies; wind we up the heights; 

Wait ye the warning? 
Our low life was the level's and the night's; 

He's for the morning. 
Step to a tune, square chests, erect each head, 25 

'Ware the beholders! 
This is our master, famous, calm and dead, 

Borne on our shoulders. 



Sleep, crop and herd! sleep, darkling thorpe and croft, 

Safe from the weather! 30 

He, whom we convoy to his grave aloft. 

Singing together. 
He was a man born with thy face and throat, 

Lyric Apollo! 
Long he lived nameless: how should Spring take note 35 

Winter would follow? 



70 ROBERT BROWNING 

Till lo, the little touch, and youth was gone! 

Cramped and diminished. 
Moaned he, "New measures, other feet anon! 

My dance is finished"? 40 

No, that's the world's way: (keep the mountain-side. 

Make for the city!) 
He knew the signal, and stepped on with pride 

Over men's pity; 
Left play for work, and grappled with the world 45 

Bent on escaping: 
"What's in the scroll," quoth he, "thou keepest furled? 

Show me their shaping, 
Theirs who most studied man, the bard and sage, — 

Give!" — So, he gowned him, 50 

Straight got by heart that book to its last page : 

Learned, we found him. 
Yea, but we found him bald too, eyes like lead. 

Accents uncertain: 
"Time to taste life," another would have said, 55 

"Up with the curtain!" 
This man said rather, "Actual life comes next? 

Patience a moment! 
Grant I have mastered learning's crabbed text, 

Still there's the comment. 60 

Let me know all! Prate not of most or least. 

Painful or easy ! 
Even to the crumbs I'd fain eat up the feast. 

Ay, nor feel queasy." 
Oh, such a life as he resolved to live, 65 

When he had learned it. 
When he had gathered all books had to give ! 

Sooner, he spurned it. 
Imagine the whole, then execute the parts — 

Fancy the fabric 70 



A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL 71 

Quite, ere you build, ere steel strike fire from quartz, 
Ere mortar dab brick! 



(Here's the town-gate reached: there's the market-place 

Gaping before us.) 
Yea, this in him was the peculiar grace 75 

(Hearten our chorus!) 
That before living he'd learn how to live — 

No end to learning: 
Earn the means first — God surely will contrive 

Use for our earning. 80 

Others mistrust and say, " But time escapes : 

Live now or never!" 
He said, ''What's time? Leave Now for dogs and apes! 

Man has Forever," 
Back to his book then: deeper drooped his head: 85 

Calculus racked him: 
Leaden before, his eyes grew dross of lead : 

Tussis attacked him. 
"Now, master, take a little rest!" — not he! 

(Caution redoubled, 90 

Step two abreast, the way winds narrowly!) 

Not a whit troubled. 
Back to his studies, fresher than at first, 

Fierce as a dragon 
He (soul-hydroptic with a sacred thirst) 95 

Sucked at the flagon. 
Oh, if we draw a circle premature, 

Heedless of far gain. 
Greedy for quick returns of profit, sure 

Bad is our bargain! 100 

Was it not great? did not he throw on God, 

(He loves the burthen) — 



72 ROBERT BROWNING 

God's task to make the heavenly period 

Perfect the earthen? 
Did not he magnify the mind, show clear 105 

Just what it all meant? 
He would not discount life, as fools do here, 

Paid by instalment. 
He ventured neck or nothing — heaven's success 

Found, or earth's failure: 110 

*'Wilt thou trust death or not?" He answered "Yes! 

Hence with life's pale lure!" 
That low man seeks a little thing to do, . 

Sees it and does it: 
This high man, with a great thing to pursue, 115 

Dies ere he knows it. 
That low man goes on adding one to one, 

His hundred's soon hit: 
This high man, aiming at a million, 

Misses an unit. 120 

That, has the world here — should he need the next, 

Let the world mind him! 
This, throws himself on God, and unperplexed 

Seeking shall find him. 
So, with the throttling hands of death at strife, 125 

Ground he at grammar; 
Still, through the rattle, parts of speech were rife: 

While he could stammer 
He settled Holies business — let it be ! — 

Properly based Oun — 130 

Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic De, 

Dead from the waist down. 



Well, here's the platform, here's the proper place: 
Hail to your purlieus. 



ONE WORD MORE 73 

All ye highfliers of the feathered race, 135 

Swallows and curlews! 
Here's the top-peak; the multitude below 

Live, for they can, there : 
This man decided not to Live but Know — 

Bury this man there? 140 

Here — here's his place, where meteors shoot, clouds 
form, 

Lightnings are loosened, 
Stars come and go! Let joy break with the storm; 

Peace let the dew send! 
Lofty designs must close in like effects: 145 

Loftily lying. 
Leave him — still loftier than the world suspects, 

Living and dying. 

ONE WORD MORE 

TO E. B. B. 

London, September, 1855 



There they are, my fifty men and women 
Naming me the fifty poems finished! 
Take them. Love, the book and me together: 
Where the heart lies, let the brain lie also. 

II 

Rafael made a century of sonnets, 5 

Made and wrote them in a certain volume 

Dinted with the silver-pointed pencil 

Else he only used to draw Madonnas : 

These, the world might view — but one, the volume. 

Who that one, you ask? Your heart instructs you. 10 



74 ROBERT BROWNING 

Did she live and love it all her lifetime? 

Did she drop, his lady of the sonnets, 

Die, and let it drop beside her pillow 

Where it lay in place of Rafael's glory, 

Rafael's cheek so duteous and so loving — 15 

Cheek, the world was wont to hail a painter's, 

Rafael's cheek, her love had turned a poet's? 

Ill 

You and I would rather read that volume, 

(Taken to his beating bosom by it) 

Lean and list the bosom-beats of Rafael, 20 

Would we not? than wonder at Madonnas — 

Her, San Sisto names, and Her, Foligno, 

Her, that visits Florence in a vision. 

Her, that's left with lilies in the Louvre — 

Seen by us and all the world in circle. 25 

IV 

You and I will never read that volume. 

Guido Reni, like his own eye's apple 

Guarded long the treasure-book and loved it. 

Guido Reni dying, all Bologna 

Cried, and the world cried too, "Ours, the treasure!" 30 

Suddenly, as rare things will, it vanished. 

V 

Dante once prepared to paint an angel : 

Whom to please? You whisper "Beatrice." 

While he mused and traced it and retraced it, 

(Peradventure with a pen corroded 35 

Still by drops of that hot ink he dipped for, 

When, his left-hand i' the hair o' the wicked, 

Back he held the brow and pricked its stigma. 



ONE WORD MORE 75 

Bit into the live man's flesh for parchment, 

Loosed him, laughed to see the writing rankle, 40 

Let the wretch go festering through Florence) — 

Dante, who loved well because he hated, 

Hated wickedness that hinders loving, 

Dante standing, studying his angel, — 

In there broke the folk of his Inferno. 45 

Says he — " Certain people of importance " 

(Such he gave his daily dreadful line to) 

"Entered and would seize, forsooth, the poet." 

Says the poet — "Then I stopped my painting." 

VI 

You and I would rather see that angel, 50 

Painted by the tenderness of Dante, 
Would we not? — than read a fresh Inferno. 

VII 

You and I will never see that picture. 

While he mused on love and Beatrice, 

While he softened o'er his outlined angel, 55 

In they broke, those "people of importance:" 

We and Bice bear the loss forever. 

VIII 

What of Rafael's sonnets, Dante's picture? 

This: no artist lives and loves, that longs not 

Once, and only once, and for one only, 60 

(Ah, the prize!) to find his love a language 

Fit and fair and simple and sufficient — 

Using nature that's an art to others. 

Not, this one time, art that's turned his nature. 

Ay, of all the artists living, loving, 65 



76 ROBERT BROWNING 

None but would forego his proper dowry, — 

Does he paint? he fain would write a poem, — 

Does he write? he fain would paint a picture, 

Put to proof art alien to the artist's, 

Once, and only once, and for one only, 70 

So to be the man and leave the artist. 

Gain the man's joy, miss the artist's sorrow. 



IX 

Wherefore? Heaven's gift takes earth's abatement! 

He who smites the rock and spreads the water, 

Bidding drink and live a crowd beneath him, 75 

Even he, the minute makes immortal. 

Proves, perchance, but mortal in the minute. 

Desecrates, belike, the deed in doing. 

While he smites, how can he but remember, 

So he smote before, in such a peril, 80 

When they stood and mocked — " Shall smiting help us?" 

When they drank and sneered — "A stroke is easy!" 

When they wiped their mouths and went their journey. 

Throwing him for thanks — " But drought was pleasant." 

Thus old memories mar the actual triumph; S5 

Thus the doing savors of disrelish; 

Thus achievement lacks a gracious somewhat; 

O'er-importuned brows becloud the mandate. 

Carelessness or consciousness — the gesture. 

For he bears an ancient wrong about him, 90 

Sees and knows again those phalanxed faces. 

Hears, yet one time more, the 'customed prelude — 

"How shouldst thou, of all men, smite, and save us?" 

Guesses what is like to prove the sequel — 

" Egypt's flesh-pots — nay, the drought was better/' 95 



ONE WORD MORE 11 

X 

Oh, the crowd must have emphatic warrant! 
Theirs, the Sinai-forehead's cloven brilUance, 
Right-arm's rod-sweep, tongue's imperial fiat. 
Never dares the man put off the prophet. 

XI 

Did he love one face from out the thousands, 100 

(Were she Jethro's daughter, white and wifely, 

Were she but the ^Ethiopian bondslave,) 

He would envy yon dumb patient camel, 

Keeping a reserve of scanty water 

Meant to save his own life in the desert; 105 

Ready in the desert to deliver 

(Kneeling down to let his breast be opened) 

Hoard and life together for his mistress. 

XII 

I shall never, in the years remaining, 110 

Paint you pictures, no, nor carve you statues, 

Make you music that should all-express me; 

So it seems : I stand on my attainment. 

This of verse alone, one life allows me; 

Verse and nothing else have I to give you. 

Other heights in other lives, God willing: 115 

All the gifts from all the heights, your own. Love! 

XIII 

Yet a semblance of resource avails us — 

Shade so finely touched, love's sense must seize it. 

Take these lines, look lovingly and nearly, 

Lines I write the first time and the last time. 120 



78 ROBERT BROWNING 

He who works in fresco steals a hair-brush, 

Curbs the liberal hand, subservient proudly, 

Cramps his spirit, crowds its all in little, 

Makes a strange art of an art familiar, 

Fills his lady's missal-marge with flowerets. 125 

He who blows through bronze may breathe through silver, 

Fitly serenade a slumbrous princess. 

He who writes, may write for once as I do. 

XIV 

Love, you saw me gather men and women. 

Live or dead or fashioned by my fancy: 130 

Enter each and all, and use their service; 

Speak from every mouth, — the speech, a poem. 

Hardly shall I tell my joys and sorrows, 

Hopes and fears, belief and disbelieving: 

I am mine and yours — the rest be all men's; 135 

Karshish, Cleon, Norbert, and the fifty. 

Let me speak this once in my true person. 

Not as Lippo, Roland, or Andrea, 

Though the fruit of speech be just this sentence: 

Pray you, look on these my men and women, 140 

Take and keep my fifty poems finished; 

Where my heart lies, let my brain lie also! 

Poor the speech; be how I speak, for all things. 

XV 

Not but that you know me! Lo, the moon's self! 

Here in London, yonder late in Florence, 145 

Still we find her face, the thrice-transfigured. 

Curving on a sky imbrued with color. 

Drifted over Fiesole by twilight, 

Came she, our new crescent of a hair's-breadth. 



ONE WORD MORE 79 

Full she flared it, lamping Samminiato, 150 

Rounder 'twixt the cypresses and rounder, 

Perfect till the nightingales applauded. 

Now, a piece of her old self, impoverished. 

Hard to greet, she traverses the house-roofs, 

Hurries with unhandsome thrift of silver, 155 

Goes dispiritedly, glad to finish. 

XVI 

What, there's nothing in the moon noteworthy? 

Nay: for if that moon could love a mortal, 

Use, to charm him (so to fit a fancy), 

All her magic ('tis the old sweet mythos), 160 

She would turn a new side to her mortal, 

Side unseen of herdsman, huntsman, steersman — 

Blank to Zoroaster on his terrace. 

Blind to Galileo on his turret. 

Dumb to Homer, dumb to Keats — him, even! 165 

Think, the wonder of the moonstruck mortal — 

When she turns round, comes again in heaven, 

Opens out anew for worse or better! 

Proves she like some portent of an iceberg 

Swimming full upon the ship it founders, 170 

Hungry with huge teeth of splintered crystals? 

Proves she as the paved work of a sapphire 

Seen by Moses when he climbed the mountain? 

Moses, Aaron, Nadab and Abihu 

Climbed and saw the very God, the Highest, 175 

Stand upon the paved work of a sapphire. 

Like the bodied heaven in his clearness 

Shone the stone, the sapphire of that paved work, 

When they ate and drank and saw God also ! 



80 ROBERT BROWNING 

XVII 

What were seen? None knows, none ever shall 

know. 180 

Only this is sure — the sight were other; 
Not the moon's same side, born late in Florence, 
Dying now impoverished here in London. 
God be thanked, the meanest of his creatures 
Boasts two soul-sides: one to face the world with; 185 
One to show a woman when he loves her! 

XVIII 

This I say of me, but think of you, Love! 

This to you — yourself my moon of poets! 

Ah, but that's the world's side, there's the wonder; 

Thus they see you, praise you, think they know you! 190 

There, in turn I stand with them and praise you — 

Out of my own self, I dare to phrase it. 

But the best is when I glide from out them, 

Cross a step or two of dubious twilight, 

Come out on the other side, the novel 195 

Silent silver lights and darks undreamed of, 

Where I hush and bless myself with silence. 

XIX 

Oh, their Rafael of the dear Madonnas; 

Oh, their Dante of the dread Inferno, 

Wrote one song — and in my brain I sing it; 200 

Drew one angel — borne, see, on my bosom! 

R, B. 



PROSPICE 81 



PROSPICE 



Fear death? — to feel the fog in my throaty 

The mist in my face, 
When the snows begin, and the blasts denote 

I am nearing the place, 
The power of the night, the press of the storm, 5 

The post of the foe; 
Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form, 

Yet the strong man must go: 
For the journey is done and the summit attained. 

And the barriers fall, 10 

Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained, 

The reward of it all. 
I was ever a fighter, so — one fight more. 

The best and the last! 
I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and for- 
bore, 15 

And bade me creep past. 
No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers 

The heroes of old. 
Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears 

Of pain, darkness, and cold. 20 

For sudden the w^orst turns the best to the brave, 

The black minute's at end, 
And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave. 

Shall dwindle, shall blend, 
Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain, 25 

Then a light, then thy breast. 
thou soul of my soul ! I shall clasp thee again, 

And with God be the rest! 



82 ROBERT BROWNING 



EPILOGUE TO ASOLANDO 

At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time, 

When you set your fancies free, 
Will they pass to where — by death, fools think, im- 
prisoned — 
Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you loved so, 

— Pity me? 5 

Oh to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken! 

What had I on earth to do 
With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly? 
Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did I drivel 

— Being — who? 10 

One who never turned his back but marched breast 
forward. 
Never doubted clouds would break, 
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would 

triumph. 
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, 

Sleep to wake. 15 

No, at noonday in the bustle of man's work-time 

Greet the unseen with a cheer! 
Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be, 
"Strive and thrive!" cry " Speed, — fight on, fare ever 
There as here!'' 20 



THE ITALIAN IN ENGLAND 83 



THE ITALIAN IN ENGLAND 

That second time they hunted me 

From hill to plain, from shore to sea, 

And Austria, hounding far and wide 

Her blood-hounds through the country-side, 

Breathed hot and instant on my trace, — 5 

I made six days a hiding-place 

Of that dry green old aqueduct 

Where I and Charles, when boys, have plucked 

The fire-flies from the roof above. 

Bright creeping through the moss they love: 10 

■ — How long it seems since Charles was lost! 

Six days the soldiers crossed and crossed 

The country in my very sight; 

And when that peril ceased at night, 

The sky broke out in red dismay 15 

With signal fires; well, there I lay 

Close covered o'er in my recess, 

Up to the neck in ferns and cress, 

Thinking on Metternich our friend. 

And Charles's miserable end, 20 

And much beside, two days; the third, 

Hunger overcame me when I heard 

The peasants from the village go 

To work among the maize; you know, 

With us in Lombardy, they bring 25 

Provisions packed on mules, a string 

With little bells that cheer their task. 

And casks, and boughs on every cask 

To keep the sun's heat from the wine; 

These I let pass in jingling line, 30 

And, close on them, dear noisy crew, 



84 ROBERT BROWNING 

The peasants from the village, too; 

For at the very rear would troop 

Their wives and sisters in a group 

To help, I knew. When these had passed, 35 

I threw my glove to strike the last. 

Taking the chance : she did not start, 

Much less cry out, but stooped apart, 

One instant rapidly glanced round. 

And saw me beckon from the ground; 40 

A wild bush grows and hides my crypt; 

She picked my glove up while she stripped 

A branch off, then rejoined the rest 

With that; my glove lay in her breast. 

Then I drew breath : they disappeared : 45 

It was for Italy I feared. 

An hour, and she returned alone 
Exactly where my glove was thrown. 
Meanwhile came many thoughts; on me 
Rested the hopes of Italy; 50 

I had devised a certain tale 
Which, when 't was told her, could not fail 
Persuade a peasant of its truth ; 
I meant to call a freak of youth 
This hiding, and give hopes of pay, 55 

And no temptation to betray. 
But when I saw that woman's face. 
Its calm simplicity of grace, 
Our Italy's own attitude 

In which she walked thus far, and stood, 60 

Planting each naked foot so firm. 
To crush the snake and spare the worm — 
At first sight of her eyes, I said, 
*' I am that man upon whose head 



THE ITALIAN IN ENGLAND 85 

They fix the price, because I hate 65 

The Austrians over us : the State 

Will give you gold — oh, gold so much! — 

If you betray me to their clutch. 

And be your death, for aught I know, 

If once they find you saved their foe. 70 

Now, you must bring me food and drink, 

And also paper, pen and ink. 

And carry safe what shall I write 

To Padua, which you'll reach at night 

Before the duomo shuts; go in, 75 

And wait till Tenebrse begin; 

Walk to the third confessional. 

Between the pillar and the wall. 

And kneeling whisper. Whence comes peace? 

Say it a second time, then cease; 80 

And if the voice inside returns, 

From Christ and Freedom; what concerns 

The cause of Peace? — for answer, slip 

My letter where you placed your lip; 

Then come back happy we have done 85 

Our mother service — I, the son. 

As you the daughter of our land! '[ 

Three mornings more, she took her stand 
In the same place, with the same eyes : 
I was no surer of sunrise 90 

Than of her coming. We conferred 
Of her own prospects, and I heard 
She had a lover — stout and tall. 
She said — then let her eyelids fall, 
" He could do much ''—as if some doubt 95 

Entered her heart, — then, passing out, 
" She could not speak for others, who 



86 ROBERT BROWNING 

Had other thoughts; herself she knew: '' 

And so she brought me drink and food. 

After four days, the scouts pursued 100 

Another path ; at last arrived 

The help my Paduan friends contrived 

To furnish me : she brought the news. 

For the first time I could not choose 

But kiss her hand, and lay my own 105 

Upon her head — " This faith was shown 

To Italy, our mother; she 

Uses my hand and blesses thee.'' 

She followed down to the sea-shore; 

I left and never saw her more. 110 

How very long since I have thought 
Concerning — much less wished for — aught 
Beside the good of Italy, 
For which I live and mean to die! 
I never was in love; and since 115 

Charles proved false, what shall now convince 
My inmost heart I have a friend? 
However, if I pleased to spend 
Real wishes on myself — say, three — 
I know at least what one should be. 120 

I would grasp Metternich until 
I felt his red wet throat distil 
In blood through these two hands. And next 
— Nor much for that am I perplexed — 
Charles, perjured traitor, for his part, 125 

Should die slow of a broken heart 
Under his new employers. Last 
— Ah, there, what should I wish? For fast 
Do I grow old and out of strength. 
If I resolved to seek at length 130 



THE ITALIAN IN ENGLAND 87 

My father's house again, how scared 

They all would look, and unprepared! 

My brothers live in Austria's pay 

— Disowned me long ago, men say; 

And all my early mates who used 135 

To praise me so — perhaps induced 

More than one early step of mine — ■ 

Are turning wise : while some opine 

'' Freedom grows license," some suspect 

*' Haste breeds delay,'' and recollect 140 

They always said, such premature 

Beginnings never could endure! 

So, with a sullen '' All's for best," 

The land seems settling to its rest. 

I think then, I should wish to stand 145 

This evening in that dear, lost land, 

Over the sea the thousand miles, 

And know if yet that woman smiles 

With the calm smile; some little farm 

She lives in there, no doubt : what harm 150 

If I sat on the door-side bench. 

And, while her spindle made a trench 

Fantastically in the dust, 

Inquired of all her fortunes — just 

Her children's ages and their names, 155 

And what may be the husband's aims 

For each of them. I'd talk this out, 

And sit there, for an hour about, 

Then kiss her hand once more, and lay 

Mine on her head, and go my way. 160 

So much for idle wishing — how 
It steals the time! To business now. 



88 ROBERT BROWNING 



INSTANS TYRANNUS 



Of the million or two, more or less, 
I rule and possess, 
One man, for some cause undefined, 
Was least to my mind. 

II 

I struck him, he grovelled of course — 5 

For, what was his force? 

I pinned him to earth with my weight 

And persistence of hate: 

And he lay, would not moan would not curse. 

As his lot might be worse. 10 



III 

" Were the object less mean, would he stand 

At the swing of my hand! 

For obscurity helps him and blots 

The hole where he squats.'' 

So, I set my five wits on the stretch 15 

To inveigle the wretch. 

All in vain! Gold and jewels I threw, 

Still he couched there perdue; 

I tempted his blood and his flesh, 

Hid in roses my mesh, 20 

Choicest cates and the flagon's best spilth: 

Still he kept to his filth. 



INSTANS TYRANNUS 89 

IV 

Had he kith now or kin, were access 

To his heart, did I press : 

Just a son or a mother to seize! 25 

No such booty as these. 

Were it simply a friend to pursue 

'Mid my million or two. 

Who could pay me in person or pelf 

What he owes me himself! 30 

No: I could not but smile through my chafe: 

For the fellow lay safe 

As his mates do, the midge and the nit, 

— Through minuteness, to wit. 



Then a humor more great took its place 35 

At the thought of his face, 

The droop, the low cares of the mouth. 

The trouble uncouth 

Twixt the brows, all that air one is fain 

To put out of its pain. 40 

And, '' no! " I admonished myself, 

" Is one mocked by an elf. 

Is one baffled by toad or by rat? 

The gravamen's in that! 

How the lion, who crouches to suit 45 

His back to my foot. 

Would admire that I stand in debate! 

But the small turns the great 

If it vexes you,— that is the thing! 

Toad or rat vex the king? 50 

Though I waste half my realm to unearth 

Toad or rat, 'tis well worth! '[ 



90 ROBERT BROWNING 

VI 

So, I soberly laid my last plan 

To extinguish the man. 

Round his creep-hole, with never a break, 55 

Ran my fires for his sake; 

Over-head; did my thunder combine 

With my underground mine : 

Till I looked from my labor content 

To enjoy the event. 60 

VII 

When sudden . . . how think ye, the end? 
Did I say " without friend '' ? 
Say rather, from marge to blue marge 
The whole sky grew his targe 

With the sun's self for visible boss, 65 

While an Arm ran across 
Which the earth heaved beneath like a breast 
Where the wretch was safe prest! 
Do you see? Just my vengeance complete, 
. The man sprang to his feet, 70 

Stood erect, caught at God's skirts, and prayed! 
• — So, / was afraid! 

THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN 

A child's story 
(Written for, and inscribed to, W. M. the Younger) 

Hamelin Town's in Brunswick, 
By famous Hanover city; 

The river Weser, deep and wide. 

Washes its wall on the southern side; 

A pleasanter spot you never spied; 5 



THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN 91 

But, when begins my ditty, 
Almost five hundred years ago, 
To see the townsfolk suffer so 
From vermin, was a pity, 

II 

Rats! 10 

They fought the dogs and killed the cats. 

And bit the babies in the cradles, 
And ate the cheeses out of the vats, 

And licked the soup from the cooks' own ladles. 
Split open the kegs of salted sprats, 15 

Made nests inside men's Sunday hats, 
And even spoiled the women's chats 

By drowning their speaking 

With shrieking and squeaking 
In fifty different sharps and flats. 20 

III 

At last the people in a body 

To the Town Hall came flocking: 
" 'T is clear," cried they, " our Mayor's a noddy; 

And as for our Corporation — shocking 
To think we buy gowns lined with ermine 25 

For dolts that can't or won't determine 
What's best to rid us of our vermin! 
You hope, because you're old and obese. 
To find in the furry civic robe ease? 
Rouse up, sirs! Give your brains a racking 30 

To find the remedy we're lacking, 
Or, sure as fate, we'll send you packing! [[ 
At this the Mayor and Corporation 
Quaked with a mighty consternation, 



92 ROBERT BROWNING 

IV 

An hour they sat in council; 35 

At length the Mayor broke silence: 
'' For a guilder I'd my ermine gown sell, 

I wish I were a mile hence! 
It's easy to bid one rack one's brain — 
I'm sure my poor head aches again, 40 

I've scratched it so, and all in vain. 
Oh for a trap, a trap, a trap! " 
Just as he said this, what should hap 
At the chamber-door but a gentle tap? 
'' Bless us," cried the Mayor, '' what's that? '' 45 

(With the Corporation as he sat, 
Looking little though wondrous fat; 
Nor brighter was his e3^e, nor moister 
Than a too-long-opened oyster, 

Save when at noon his paunch grew mutinous 50 

For a plate of turtle green and glutinous) 
'' Only a scraping of shoes on the mat? 
Anything like the sound of a rat 
Makes my heart go pit-a-pat! " 



/'Come in!" — the Mayor cried, looking bigger: 55 

And in did come the strangest figure! 

His queer long coat from heel to head 

Was half of yellow and half of red. 

And he himself was tall and thin. 

With sharp blue eyes, each like a pin, 60 

And light loose hair, yet swarthy skin, 

No tuft on cheek nor beard on chin. 

But lips where smiles went out and in; 

There was no guessing his kith and kin: 



THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN 93 

And nobody could enough admire 65 

The tall man and his quaint attire. 

Quoth one: " It's as my great-grandsire, 

Starting up at the Trump of Doom's tone, 

Had walked this way from his painted tomb-stone! " 

VI 

He advanced to the council-table: 70 

And, " Please your honors," said he, " I'm able, 

By means of a secret charm, to draw 

All creatures living beneath the sun. 

That creep or swim or fly or run. 

After me so as you never saw! 75 

And I chiefly use my charm 

On creatuies that do people harm. 

The mole and toad and newt and viper; 

And people call me the Pied Piper." 

(And here they noticed round his neck 80 

A scarf of red and yellow stripe, 

To match with his coat of the self-same cheque; 

And at the scarf's end hung a pipe; 

And his fingers, they noticed, were ever straying 

As if impat ent to be playing 85 

Upon this pipe, as low it dangled 

Over his vesture so old-fangled.) 

" Yet," said he, " poor piper as I am. 

In Tartary I freed the Cham, 

Last June, from his huge swarms of gnats; 90 

I eased in Asia the Nizam 

Of a monstrous brood of vampire-bats: 

And as for what your brain bewilders. 

If I can rid your town of rats 

Will you give me a thousand guilders? " 95 



94 ROBERT BROWNING 

'^ One? fifty thousand! " — was the exclamation 
Of the astonished Mayor and Corporation. 



vii 



Into the street the Piper stept, 

Smiling first a little smile, 
As if he knew what magic slept 100 

In his quiet pipe the while; 
Then, like a musical adept, 
To blow the pipe his lips he wrinkled. 
And green and blue his sharp eyes twinkled. 
Like a candle-flame where salt is sprinkled; 105 

And ere three shrill notes the pipe uttered, 
You heard as if an army muttered; 
And the muttering grew to a grumbling; 
And the grumbling grew to a mighty rumbling; 
And out of the houses the rats came tumbling. 110 

Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats. 
Brown rats, black rats, gray rats, tawny rats, 
Grave old plodders, gay young friskers, 

Fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins, 
Cocking tails and pricking whiskers, 115 

Families by tens and dozens. 
Brothers, sisters, husbands, wives — 
Followed the Piper for their lives. 
From street to street he piped advancing, 
And step for step they followed dancing, 120 

Until they came to the river Weser, 
Wherein all plunged and perished! 
— Save one who, stout as Julius Csesar, 
Swam across and lived to carry 
(As he, the manuscript he cherished) 125 



THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN 95 

To Rat-land home his commentary: 

Which was, '' At the first shrill notes of the pipe, 

I heard a sound as of scraping tripe, 

And putting apples, wondrous ripe. 

Into a cider-press's gripe : 130 

And a moving away of pickle-tub-boards. 

And a leaving ajar of conserve-cupboards, 

And a drawing the corks of train-oil-flasks. 

And a breaking the hoops of butter-casks: 

And it seemed as if a voice 135 

(Sweeter far than by harp or by psaltery 

Is breathed) called out, ' Oh rats, rejoice! 

The world is grown to one vast drysaltery! 

So munch on, crunch on, take your nuncheon. 

Breakfast, supper, dinner, luncheon! ' 140 

And just as a bulky sugar-puncheon, 

All ready staved, like a great sun shone 

Glorious scarce an inch before me, 

Just as methought it said. ' Come, bore me! ' 

— I found the Weser rolling o'er me." 145 



VIII 

You should have heard the Hamelin people 

Ringing the bells till they rocked the steeple. 

'' Go," cried the Mayor, ^' and get long poles, 

Poke out the nests and block up the holes! 

Consult with carpenters and builders, ' 150 

And leave in our town not even a trace 

Of the rats! " — when suddenly, up the face 

Of the Piper perked in the market-place, 

With a, '' First, if you please, my thousand guilders!" 



96 ROBERT BROWNING 

IX 

A thousand guilders! The Mayor looked blue; 155 

So did the Corporation too. 

For council dinners made rare havoc 

With Claret, Moselle, Vin-de-Grave, Hock; 

And half the money would replenish 

Their cellar's biggest butt with Rhenish. 160 

To pay this sum to a wandering fellow 

With a gypsy coat of red and yellow! 

'' Beside/' quoth the Mayor with a knowing wink, 

'' Our business was done at the river's brink; 

We saw with our eyes the vermin sink, 165 

And what's dead can't come to life, I think. 

So, friend, we're not the folks to shrink 

From the duty of giving you something "for drink, 

And a matter of money to put in your poke; 

But as for the guilders, what w^e spoke 170 

Of them, as you very well know, was in joke. 

Beside, our losses have made us thrifty. 

A thousand guilders! Come, take fifty! " 



The Piper's face fell, and he cried, 

" No trifling! I can't wait, beside! 175 

I've promised to visit by dinner time 

Bagdat, and accept the prime 

Of the Head-Cook's pottage, all he's rich in, 

For having left, in the Caliph's kitchen, 

Of a nest of scorpions no survivor: 180 

With him I proved no bargain-driver, 

With you, don't think I'll bate a stiver! 

And folks who put me in a passion 

May find me pipe after another fashion.'' 



THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN 97 

XI 

" How? " cried the Mayor, '' lV ye think I brook 185 

Being worse treated than a Cook? 

Insulted by a lazy ribald 

With idle pipe and vesture piebald? 

You threaten us, fellow? Do your worst, 

Blow your pipe there till you burst! ^\ 190 

XII 

Once more he stept into the street, 

And to his lips again 
Laid his long pipe of smooth straight cane; 

And ere he blew three notes (such sweet 
Soft notes as yet musician's cunning 195 

Never gave the enraptured air) 
There was a rustling that seemed like a bustling 
Of merry crowds justling at pitching and hustling; 
Small feet were pattering, wooden shoes clattering, 
Little hands clapping and little tongues chattering, 200 
And, like fowls in a farm-yard when barley is scattering, 
Out came the children running. 
All the little boys and girls, 
With rosy cheeks and flaxen curls, 
And sparkling eyes and teeth like pearls, 205 

Tripping and skipping, ran merrily after 
The wonderful music with shouting and laughter. 

XIII 

The Mayor was dumb, and the Council stood 
As if they were changed into blocks of wood, 
Unable to move a step, or cry 210 

To the children merrily skipping by, 



I ROBERT BROWNING 

— Could only follow with the eye 

That joyous crowd at the Piper's back. 

But how the Mayor was on the rack, 

And the wretched Council's bosoms beat, 215 

As the Piper turned from the High Street 

To where the Weser rolled its waters 

Right in the way of their sons and daughters! 

However, he turned from South to West, 

And to Koppelberg Hill his steps addressed, 220 

And after him the children pressed; 

Great was the joy in every breast. 

'' He never can cross that mighty top! 

He's forced to let the piping drop, 

And we shall see our children stop! " 225 

When, lo, as they rea<3hed the mountain-side, 

A wondrous portal opened wide, 

As if a cavern was suddenly hollowed ; 

And the Piper advanced and the children followed. 

And when all were in to the very last, 230 

The door in the mountain-side shut fast. 

Did I say, all? No! One was lame. 

And could not dance the whole of the way; 

And in after years, if you would blame 

His sadness, he was used to say, — 235 

" It's dull in our town since my playmates left! 

I can't forget that I'm bereft 

Of all the pleasant sights they see, 

Which the Piper also promised me. 

For he led us, he said, to a joyous land, 240 

Joining the town and just at hand. 

Where waters gushed and fruit-trees grew 

And flowers put forth a fairer hue, 

And everything was strange and new; 

The sparrows were brighter than peacocks here, 245 



THE PIED PIPER OF IIAMELIN 99 

And their dogs outran our fallow deer, 

And honey-bees had lost their stings, 

And horses were born with eagles' wings: 

And just as I became assured 

My lame foot would be speedily cured, 250 

The music stopped and I stood still, 

And found myself outside the hill. 

Left alone against my will, 

To go now limping as before, 

And never hear of that country more! \[ 255 

XIV 

Alas, alas for Hamelin! 

There came into many a burgher's pate 

A text which says that heaven's gate 

Opes to the rich at as easy rate 
As the needle's eye takes a camel in! 260 

The Mayor sent East, West, North and South, 
To offer the Piper, by word of mouth. 

Wherever it was men's lot to find him, 
Silver and gold to his heart's content. 
If he'd only return the way he went, 265 

And bring the children behind him. 
But when they saw 't was a lost endeavor. 
And Piper and dancers were gone forever. 
They made a decree that lawyers never 

Should think their "records dated duly 270 

If, after the day of the month and year. 
These words did not as well appear, 
*' And so long after what happened here 

On the Twenty-second of July, 
Thirteen hundred and seventy-six : '\ 275 

And the better in memory to fix 



100 ROBERT BROWNING 

The place of the children's last retreat, 

They called it, the Pied Piper's Street — 

Where any one playing on pipe or tabor 

Was sure for the future to lose his labor. 280 

Nor suffered they hostelry or tavern 

To shock with mirth a street so solemn; 
But opposite the place of the cavern 

They wrote the story on a column. 
And on the great church-window painted 285 

The same, to make the world acquainted 
How their children were stolen away, 
And there it stands to this very day. 
And I must not omit to say 

That in Transylvania there's a tribe 290 

Of alien people who ascribe 
The outlandish ways and dress 
On which their neighbors lay such stress. 
To their fathers and mothers having risen 
Out of some subterraneous prison 295 

Ihto which they were trepanned 
Long time ago in a mighty band 
Out of Hamelin town in Brunswick land, 
But how or why, they don't understand. 



XV 

So, Willy, let me and you be wipers 300 

Of scores out with all men — especially pipers! 
And, whether they pipe us free from rats or from mice, 
If we've promised them aught, let us keep our promise! 



NOTES 

Incident of the French Camp 

This poem serves to introduce the form into which Browning 
throws so many of his narratives, the dramatic monolog. The 
speaker and the scene must be vividly imagined. In this case we 
may suppose a httle group of French veterans smoking their pipes 
over a glass of wine at an inn, and recalling incidents in their glorious 
campaigning with the Little General. The speaker is standing, 
and begins in familiar story-telling fashion, "You know we French 
stormed Ratisbon"; and, continuing, he insensibly assumes dra- 
matically Napoleon's customary attitude, "legs wide, arms 
locked behind." The poem, then, is essentially one for free dra- 
matic interpretation; it needs careful handling, especially in the 
fourth and fifth stanzas — the last desperate effort of the dying 
lad to deliver his message — and the transition to the quieter, slower, 
tenderer manner of the concluding stanza. It is a true story, save 
that the real hero was a man. 

How They Brought the Good News 

Again, essentially a poem for dramatic realization. The 
rhythm is the chief factor. The pauses of the opening stanza are 
important, until, as the more even swing of the lines intimates, the 
horses settle down to a steady gallop. 

Note the changes in time and tone in the following stanzas. 
How does the meter compare with that of other poems describing 
rides? The poem is not based upon fact; but the geography is 
real enough, and we can easily imagine circumstances under which 
the saving of Aix became a matter of such desperate necessity, 
as, e.g., that it had been determined to set the city on fire at a 
certain time rather than deliver it into the hands of the enemy. 
The case has been compared to that of Mitylene when it had revolted 
from ancient Athens. But this is, after all, a matter of quite 
secondary importance (say why). Browning gives us the leading 
clue when he tells us that the poem was written when he had been 
on a sea-voyage "long enough to appreciate even the fancy of a 
gallop on the back of a certain good horse, 'York,' then in my 
stable at home." 

101 



102 NOTES 

Through the Metidja 

This tour de force is given for its contrasting movement. The 
lilt of the riding rhythm differs, as the circumstances differ, from 
that of the preceding poem. Can you justify the difference? Note 
also how slight is the scenic allusion here. What emotion domi- 
nates the rider? The strange fancies of this fanatical Arab, as he 
rides across the lonely desert to his great chief, Abd-el-Kadr, are 
somewhat impalpable, but suggestive of one of those wild upris- 
ings of the fierce Arab tribes against their modern French "civili- 
zers." The main thing, however, is the impression of that swinging 
desert ride, and its passionately meditative rider. 

MULEYKEH 

The rhythm is irregular and difficult; read aloud until you 
catch it. Note the rime scheme. The story is a touching expres- 
sion of the Arab's love of his steed. (Tell it briefly in your own 
words.) How is Hoseyn's character delineated? The construction 
is difficult at times, as in 11. 4-6; be sure of the meaning. Some of 
the touches are very striking, e.g., 11. 34-5. What others do you 
note? 

Tray 

Another poem showing Browning's interest in animals, and 
the side he took in the controversy about vivisection. He protested 
against what he called "an infamous practice," and took an active 
part in the movement against it. He had no sympathy with the 
man who, as he says elsewhere, would 

"have no end of brutes 
Cut up alive to guess what suits 
My case, and saves my toe from shoots." 

The story is true; a friend of the poet's saw this instance of 
what Browning believes to be animal "heroism" in Paris. 

Donald 

Another "true" animal story, told with the same motive as 
"Tray," but criticised as being unfair, because no true "sports- 
man" such as is spoken of in the first part of the poem would be 
guilty of such mean, unsportsmanlike conduct. What do you 
think? Do you approve of the story-teller's silence (1. 235)? Do 
you know the meaning of bothy, trivet, Glenlivet douhle-first, heather, 
peat, burnie, Ben, fallow dser (as distinguished from red deer), volte- 
face, pastern, Goliath ? Which have local color? Characterize the 
meter: the stanza. 



NOTES 103 

Herve Riel 

We may think of this as in some respects a companion poem 
to Tennyson's ballad of the Revenge (note the correspondences and 
differences in form — stanza, rhythm, direct narration, etc. — and 
in substance). Browning graciously wrote this tribute to French 
heroism in order that he might contribute the hundred guineas 
which it brought him to the fund for the relief of the starving 
citizens of Paris after the siege (1871). The story is a true one, 
but it curiously remained for an Englishman to blazon the for- 
gotten deed in verse. The poem was written at Le Croisic, a small 
fishing village at the mouth of the Loire, and the home of the brave 
Breton sailor who asked, as his reward for his valor, that he might 
have a whole day's holiday to go ashore to see his wife! 

Be careful to pronounce the hero's name as French, not German; 
I.e., Ri-el. 

The Ranee (5) : the river which flows into the English channel 
at Saint-Malo, Brittany. Twelve and eighty (18): following the 
French, quatre-vingt-douze. Tourville (43): the French admiral. 
Croisickese (44): native of Le Croisic. Malouins (46): natives of 
St. Malo. dreve (49) : sands round Mont Saint Michel. Bay (52) : 
that of Saint-Michel. Disembogues (49): enters the sea. Solidor 
(53): old fort on mainland. Rampired (92): ramparted, fortified. 
Louvre (135): great picture-gallery and museum in Paris. 

Pheidippides 

Based, with much skilful suggestiveness, on the story told by 
Herodotus (look it up in Rawlinson's translation), a mixture of 
fact and legend, of the Athenian runner who in forty-eight hours 
ran the one hundred and fifty miles between Athens and Sparta 
with a request for aid against the invading Persians. Note how 
the story is told: first by the hero him.self (when, is explained by 
1. 9), who then leaves for Marathon ("Fennel-field": it is a sprig 
of fennel Pan presents, see 1. 81); and then it is brought to a close 
in 11. 105-112, with an epilog explaining the Greek salutation 
born of Marathon Day, "Rejoice, we conquer" (given in Greek as 
sub-title). There is a spirit of Hellenic blitheness and grace in 
the poem, felt at once in the opening religious salutation. The 
character of Pheidippides — notably his patriotism and his mod- 
esty — is worthy of study. 

The hexameter verse is rough: some lines are almost unscanable; 
others (e.g., 64) charmingly smooth. The predominant foot is 
the dactyl, varied by the foot of two equal stresses — sometimes 
light, and at other times having the weight of the true spondee — 
thus (1. 2): 



104 NOTE'S 

\j y^ — — — w w — —vyvy 

Gods of my ] birth-place 1 de-mons and | he-roes J honor to ] all. 

or a uniformly dactyllic line like this (26): 

Ev-e-ry [ face of her | leered in a ] furrow of ] envy mis ] trust. 

Sometimes the line is not catalectic, as it is in the examples just 
given, thus (1. 21): 

K^ \y \y KJ \^ KJ \^ 

Die, with the | wide world | spitting at | Spar-ta the | stupid 

^ WW 

the I stander by. 

Sometimes an iambus takes the place of a dactyl or spondee 
(1. 53): 

W W W — W W WW 

Treeless | herbless 1 lifeless | mountain! What ] matter if | 

slacked, 

unless, indeed, a special value is given to the syllable "less" in 
the first three words. Note the caesura after "mountain," and 
its incidence elsewhere. What about rime? 

For the classical allusions consult Gay ley's Classic Myths in 
English Literature. Be sure of the meaning of dcemons (2); buskin 
(5); Archons (9); tettix (9); filleted (47); fosse (61); fane (73); 
guerdon (88). On the razor's edge (87) means a critical situation; 
have we a corresponding idiom? Parnes (52 et seq.) seems to be 
a slip of Browning's; it is a mountain between Attica and Boeotia; 
whereas, according to Herodotus, it was on Mount Parthenium in 
Arcadia that the hero met the god. 

Browning, who from his childhood, under his scholarly father's 
inspiration, kept his Greek studies agoing, returned to classic 
themes from time to time, and made some translations from the 
Greek dramatists. You will find them in his complete works. 
Try first his delightful Balaustion's Adventure, with its rendering 
of Euripides's Alkestis. His amusing account of his first steps in 
Greek is to be found in his poem. Development. His wife, too, 
loved and was learned in these old themes, and translated the 
Prometheus Bound of iEschylus. 

ECHETLOS 

In the same meter ; about Marathon, too. Note the abounding 
energy of the narrative, and the graphic quality of the descriptions. 
Don't misunderstand the meaning of clown. Tunnies are large 
fish found in the Mediterranean. Polemarch, the nominal comman- 
der-in-chief at Athens, the actual commander at Marathon being 



NOTES 105 

Miltiades. Kallimachos had given his casting-vote at the council 
of war in favor of fighting. In the last stanza the poet's comment 
on the great words of the oracle — "The great deed ne'er grows 
small" — is, "Not the great name," alas! — as the careers of 
Miltiades and Themistocles sadly show. What cast these in 
eclipse? 

The Patriot 

This is a more characteristically Browningesque study of a 
patriot — the close especially so. We return to the monolog; 
the speaker, his whereabouts and predicament (stanzas 4 and 5), 
must be clearly imaged. Note the method of the story: 1. a 
year ago (1-10); 2. the cause of the reaction (11-15); 3. now; 
4. reflection. What is the victim's mood? Why does not he 
rail against the fickle populace? In what sense is this "An Old 
Story"? 

Count Gismond 

Browning finds his heroes and heroines in all times, climes, 
and conditions. Here we have a story of the period of chivalry,— 
not an uncommon theme; but is it not old in an uncommon way? 
It is a monolog; does this restrict the speaker? What does she 
contrive to tell about herself? Is she vain? What is her charac- 
ter? To whom does she talk (11. 105-7)? Note the beautifully 
chaste quality about the poem. 

The poem is, of course, one for a girl to recite and interpret 
dramatically. At 1. 46 Browning introduces one of those little 
incidents, indicative of some act of the speaker's, which may puzzle 
the beginner. What happens here? Where is the narrative 
taken up again? Note the transition in the closing stanza. What 
effect does the poet gain by it? 

The Twins 

A PARABLE told in Luther's Table Talk. Published in 1854 
in a pamphlet sold at a bazaar for the benefit of a Refuge for Young 
Destitute Girls. Mrs. Browning contributed a poem, entitled A 
Plea for the Ragged Schools of London. How her woman's heart 
responded to the appeal of the suffering young may best be seen 
in her passionate Cry of the Children. The Latin students will 
explain the Date and Dabitur. 

The Boy and the Angel 

This poem, with its simple story, yields some deeper meanings. 
It presents, says a commentator, "one of Mr. Browning's deepest 
convictions in a popular form": this conviction is embodied in 



106 NOTES 

the idea — which it may not be easy to grasp — that the simple 
praise of the curly-haired lad, Theocrite, singing at his work, had 
a quality which the praise of the Pope, in his "great way" at Rome, 
and even that of the angel Gabriel, lacked: there was "no doubt 
in it, no fear" (40). When the boy leaves his work to become a 
priest, God misses his praise; so Gabriel takes his place. But it 
is not the same: "I miss my little human praise," says God. So 
Gabriel hastens to Rome to enable Theocrite, who is now Pope, 
to return to his early cell to "resume the craftsman and the boy." 
When the two, the lad and the new Pope now in his place, died, 
"they sought God side by side," the human and the angelic, the 
lofty and the lowly. 

The form of the poem is curious: it varies frequently, the 
tetrameter changing to trimeter in 1. 8, and to dimeter in 1. 19. 
Are these and other following changes expressive? 

My Last Duchess 

This tells a story in the most condensed form, many of the 
facts being indicated by implication and suggestion. It repre- 
sents the monolog in its developed phase. Thus we gather at the 
outset that the speaker, a Duke of Ferrara, is primarily an art con- 
noisseur; his "last Duchess" (how many may there have been?) is 
memorable as having furnished a marvelous subject for Fra Pan- 
dolf's skill, and so he is now the proud possessor of a masterpiece. 
Then he meets the question always suggested to the beholder by the 
beauty of the pictured lady, — a beauty she was too lavish of. Her 
smiles were too easily and indiscriminately bestowed; she did not 
honor her lord exclusively enough. As proud as he was jealous, he 
would not stoop to chide or question; all this displeased him. So, 
after the brutal manner of so many of those great criminals of the 
Renaissance period, he gave his murderous command, and she was 
removed. He knows no shame: "there she stands as if alive" 
— one of art's triumphs! The visitor is evidently an ambassador 
come to negotiate another marriage (49-51). A bargain has to be 
made by this cultivated ruffian, who now seeks another good match. 
As they descend to rejoin the company below after their negotiating, 
the polite and polished and heartless connoisseur points with pride 
to another possession, a masterly "Neptune" by the famous Glaus 
of Innsbruck. 

A Face 

It is pleasant to turn now to this little attempt to do justice to a 
beautiful childlike face, as the poet imagines one of those old Tuscan 
painters might have painted it, upon a background of pale gold — • 
something more beautiful than even Correggio's art could compass. 



NOTES 107 

The allusion will not have much meaning unless you can turn to 
a reproduction of one of Correggio's masterpieces. 

Song from Pippa Passes 

This delicious snatch of rapturous song is a strain out of Brown- 
ing's own happy heart. Nothing is more expressive of his assured 
and exultant faith that the world is sound at the core, and that 
life means well, than the concluding couplet, so often quoted. This 
epitomizes what is called — especially by those who cannot con- 
front so buoyantly and joyously the too obvious and distressing 
sorrow and suffering of the world — Browning's optimism. George 
Eliot preferred to call herself a meliorist. 

Cavalier Tunes 

Very different from the pure, clear treble of little Pippa are 
the strong, burly tones of the great-hearted Cavaliers; but they 
echo a chiming mood of unconquerable confidence and courage — 
Browning's two conspicuous quahties. The singers are, of course. 
Royalists, who side with Charles I in the great Civil War; and 
these lusty, contemptuous country gentlemen, who rallied almost 
to a man to the King, mince no words over such "carles" as 
Pym, Hampden, Hazelrig, Fiennes, Vane, ''Noll" (Oliver Crom- 
well), and the crop-headed Parliamentary leaders. How the 
choruses ring out! 

Home-Thoughts from Abroad 

After this pronouncedly English strain the transition is natural 
to one or two poems that reflect Browning's love of his native land. 
He lived much in Italy, which shared, as a poem we shall cite 
presently will show, his heart's devotion. No more beautifully 
colored piece of description is to be found in Browning. The 
thrush is, of course, the English bird of that name, whose song is 
more flute-like and more varied perhaps than that of our own 
delightful wood-thrush. This gaudy melon-flower (20) is one which 
he is gazing upon in Italy. 

Home-Thoughts from the Sea 

Not England's beauty, but her prowess and the service of her 
great sons, are celebrated. At sea, off the southern coast of Spain, 
the poet gazes at once upon the scenes of five great naval victories. 
So, impressed by the thought of what England through her heroes 
has done for him, he asks, in a solemn religious mood, "How 
can I help England?'.' 



108 NOTES 



De Gustibus- 



Here the poet's double devotion to England and Italy is voiced. 
Here, in the first section, it is an English corn field (i.e., wheat field) 
and an English blackbird, one of the most velvet-toned of English 
singers, which are referred to. The Italian landscape in the second 
section is most masterfully done; and the closing lines, oft-quoted, 
sing an unmistakable close. The title is the beginning of a Latin 
adage; complete it. How does it apply here? 

Memorabilia 

Mingled with Browning's tributes to his native country should 
go this tribute to her poet, to whom more than to any other he was 
indebted for the kindling of his own poetic fires, — Shelley. Else- 
where Browning has paid his homage to this "Sun-treader," as 
he called him. This is an unconventional little lyric — full of 
the sense of surprise and wonder at meeting one who had actually 
known Shelley; for it was crossing a certain gray space in life 
that the poet had picked up the eagle-feather that had winged 
Shelley's sunward flight, and had put it "inside his breast." That 
was the memory he "started at" — the sun-spot in his life. In the 
poem Popularity will be found his tribute to another poet, Keats, — 
Shelley's " Adonais," — whom also he early admired. 

The Lost Leader 

Here we may well introduce this poem, contrasting by its 
note of detraction with the foregoing, and commonly supposed 
to allude to another great English poet, — Wordsworth, — who, 
from being the enthusiastic prophet of liberty and progress in his 
youth, became sobered by the French Revolution and its wild 
excesses into a cautious Conservative, disposed to frown upon all 
reform. Browning, when asked about the rumor, replied: "I 
did in my hasty youth presume to use the great and venerated 
personality of Wordsworth as a sort of painter's model; one from 
which this or that particular feature may be selected and turned 
to account; had I intended more, — above all, such a boldness 
as portraying the entire man, I should not have talked about 
'handfuls of silver and bits of ribbon.' These never influenced 
the change of pohtics in the great poet, whose defection, never- 
theless, accompanied as it was by a regular face-about of his special 
party, was to my juvenile apprehension, and even mature con- 
sideration, an event to deplore .... So, though I dare not deny 
the original of my little poem, I altogether refuse to have it con- 
sidered as the 'very effigies' of such a moral and intellectual su- 
periority." 



NOTES 109 

Note the confident tramp of the rhythm, carrying a young 
man's proud assurance of the might of his cause: "We shall 
march prospering"; "Deeds will be done." To be sure, Browning's 
own Liberalism was of a mild and respectable sort: his poetry 
nowhere reveals a vital social enthusiasm. He was the poet of 
the individual, not of causes and movements. For this social 
enthusiasm we turn rather to his wife, who in several short poems, 
and in her Aurora Leigh, sounded the note of an impassioned 
humanitarianism. 

The measures have fine sonorous quality — "Lived in his mild 
and magnificent eye." What is the meter? Render and scan, 
e.g., II. 11, 13, 14, 21, 31. Find the long vowel values. 

Life in a Love 

These little lyrics will serve to carry us from the thought of 
the celebration of one great poet's fame by another to that mighty 
theme, by their handling of which most of the great poets are to 
be appraised. In what way, with what nobility and splendor, 
does the emotion of love live in him and his works? Perhaps this 
is a test question not only for the poet, but for all artists — for all 
men and women. Browning will assuredly stand the test. For 
him pure, passionate love is the sacred fire on the altar of life; 
and fortunate was he, in his marriage with another great poet- 
soul, to find the fulfilment of his own highest ideal. His poems 
treat of love in many aspects — foiled and defeated love as well 
as love triumphant over every obstacle; courageous love and cowardly 
love; base love and "lyric love, half-angel and half-bird." Here 
we have it sung as the dominating and endlessly pursued purpose of 
a life. Failure? — 

"It is but to keep the nerves at strain 
To dry one's eyes and laugh at a fall 
And, baffled, get up and begin again." 

Youth and Art 

This poem, on the contrary, tells the story of two who failed 
to see in love, when it first budded in their hearts, the lord and 
master of life. They dallied, were over-cautious; and looking back 
to those "Bohemian" days, the now great singer confesses to the 
equally famous sculptor that she missed the golden opportunity 
that might have brought joys of which she has never tasted, and 
that life seems unfulfilled, hangs patchy and scrappy. 



110 NOTES 

Evelyn Hope 

This poem is a general favorite. Read it through once to gain 
an outlook upon the scene — the elderly man seated in the dark- 
ened room beside the beautiful young girl, lying dead, whom he 
has loved unknown to her. He can wait for love to blossom in 
her soul. Here again we have Browning's large, forward-looking 
faith that all will come right, — if not in this chapter of our life, 
then in some one yet to come (1. 29); the faith naively expressed 
by the lover when he folds the leaf in the "sweet cold hand," so 
that on waking the young girl shall remember and understand. 

Again the test of comprehension and appreciation must be the 
reading aloud, which should give us the hush of the room, the 
tenderly quiet, pausing, deeply moved manner of the speaker. 
Especially the pauses (sometimes occasioned by an omitted syl- 
lable) must be appropriate and adequate. The rhythm varies, and 
the scansion is not easy: be careful, for instance, with such lines as 
9, 31, 54. Full value must be given to the long vowel effects, 
which will often yield us spondees in scanning. 

Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister 

Refer the Latin difficulties to the Latin students. For the 
rest, imagine yourself to be a surly, sour, jealous bid monk. 

A Grammarian's Funeral 

This poem carries us back to the period of the Renaissance, 
when men were consumed by an enthusiasm for the rediscovered 
art and literature of antiquity, and worked upon the recovered 
and corrupt texts of the great Greek and Latin authors with a 
zeal that was little short of heroic. Browning tries to rescue here, 
from the scorn usually poured out upon the pedants who waste 
a life upon the minutiae of grammar and philology, an old gram- 
marian who brings to his scholarship a temper and philosophy 
that has its larger outlook and nobler meaning. It is a notable 
instance of the poet's effort to see beneath surface appearances 
to the obscure heart of human purpose and hope. There is some- 
thing grandiose in the quiet confidence of the toiling scholar who, 
with all time for his inheritance, refuses to be hurried and perturbed 
in his laborious and thorough scholarship. Men find him at his 
books bald and hazy-eyed: "Time to taste life!" they urge. "Not 
so," he protests; "all is not yet learned from the text." 

"Oh, such a life as he resolved to live 
When he had learned it, 
When he had gathered all books had to give! 
Sooner, he spurned it." 



NOTES 111 

The time would come; he trusted God for that. Meantime 
he will not be tempted by any smaller, hastier aim. And the 
poet comments: 

"That low man seeks a little thing to do, 
Sees it and does it: 
This high man with a great thing to pursue, 
Dies ere he Icnows it." 

Does such a way of looking upon life and its tasks actually 
give a certain greatness to the personality? What is to be said 
for and against this high, impractical idealism? Browning exag- 
gerates, doubtless. Does he make his point? 

The poem has imaginative and poetic merit of a high order. 
Imagine well the scene: the little band of young scholars, who have 
caught their old master's spirit, carrying the body up the mountain- 
side to give it fitting burial on the heights, singing as they go the 
requiem of their revered leader. The requiem? No, the matin- 
song; that alone becomes him: 

"Our low life was the level's and the night's, 
He's for the morning." 

To their young, idealizing hearts he is no spent, bent figure; 
rather one of those noljle figures of whom we catch a glimpse in 
the pictures of the great painters of the period. Upon these youths, 
at any rate, it is the vision of the departed man in his prime that 
now returns: 

"He was a man l>orn with thy face and throat, 
Lyric Apollo!" 

As they ascend, their meditations mingle with their songs; 
and the poet continually reminds us of that upward climb in the 
night to greet the dawn, by many a comment on the difficulties 
of the climb — 

" (Caution redoubled, 
Step two abreast, the way winds narrowly)" 

until at last the platform, the top-peak there among the sky-questing 
birds, is reached: 

"Here, here's his place, where meteors shoot, clouds form, 
Lightnings are loosened, 
Stars come and go! Let joy break with the storm. 
Peace let the dew send ! ' ' 

A few words are unusual, and must be looked up: crofts, queasy, 
calculus (the disease of that name, not the mathematical delight); 
hoti, ouriy de — Greek particles; soul-hydroptic means a soul suf- 



112 NOTES 

fering, as it were, from a disease that produces an insatiable thirst — 
the passion to know. Some of the phrases are condensed, e.g., 
"rimming the rock-row" (8), meaning making a rim beyond the 
row of rocks which are seen against the sky. 

One Word More 

This is the most intimate word that Browning has allowed us 
to overhear. It is a love-tribute offered to his wife before her 
death, as the allusion in the following poem came after it. It is the 
best response to the passionate outpourings of his wife's heart in 
her Sonnets from the Portuguese. After the introductory lines, the 
poet uses his allusion to the one unique expression of love which 
Rafael the painter found in a ''century of sonnets," and Dante the 
poet sought in the figure of an angel which he drew. How would 
these two lovers prize a sight of those privacies of soul! And how 
does he, unapt at painting, sculpture, and music, long as these great 
lovers did, "once and once only . . . to be the man and leave the 
artist." (Stanzas ix-xi are difficult, and their clear understanding 
may be postponed.) But writer only as he is, he may once put his 
talent to a similarly unique purpose. All he has written — all his 
fifty men and women are hers, though "all men's" too; but hers in 
a different way, as coming from him in a different way, is this dedi- 
cation. "Let me speak this once in my true person." "Poor 
the speech" — yet she knows him, as he knows her. How he 
knows her he indicates by the beautiful imagery of the moon — 
seen on one side only by the common eye, but by the rarer soul 
on the other side. 

"God be thanked, the meanest of his creatures 
Boasts two soul-sides, one to face the world with, 
One to show a woman when he loves her!" 

This, said of himself, he applies to her, his "moon of poets." 
The world sees her and praises, but he: 

"There in turn I stand with them and praise you — 
But the best is when I glide from out them, 
Cross a step or two of dubious twilight, 
Come out on the other side, the novel 
Silent silver lights and darks undreamed of, 
Where I hush and bless myself with silence." 

Prospice 

This "look forward," under the very grip of death, is very 
intensely personal, charged with that spiritual athleticism, that 
hardy battling faith which we meet again and again in Browning. 



NOTES 113 

''I was ever a fighter, so — one fight more, the best and the last!" 
Death shall yield its full revelations. Note the change beginning 
at 1. 21; the beautiful diminue7ido to the exquisite quiet rapture 
of the close. This is very intimately personal; the allusion is, 
of course, to his wife; one of the few expressions the poet has al- 
lowed himself of the love in his own life which was stronger than 
death. 

Epilogue to Asolando 

The same mood is in this last word and testament of the man 
who was ever a fighter, and inspired others to fight the good fight 
in the interest of their own highest spiritual blessedness and devel- 
opment : 

"One who never turned his back, but marched breast forward. 
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better." 

It was a propos of this third stanza that Browning, one evening 
just before his last and fatal illness, said to his daughter-in-law 
and sister, when reading the printer's proof-sheets to them: "It 
almost looks like bragging to say this, and as if I ought to cancel 
it; but it's the simple truth; and as it's true, it shall stand." 

One naturally compares this valedictory (which closes the 
volume published in London on the very day on which Browning 
died) with Tennyson's Crossing the Bar. There is a very charac- 
teristic difference between the two, in no particular more obviously 
shown than in Browning's last words of unconquerable resolve, his 
first and last evangel: 

" 'Strive and thrive!' cry: 'Speed, — fight on, fare ever 
There as here!'!' 

Up at a Villa — Down in the City 

Yet another Italian poem ! If you look up the volumes (or groups) 
of " Dramatic Lyrics " and " Dramatic Romances " in Browning's 
complete works, you will note evidences not only of the spell of 
Italy, but of wider international interests on the poet's part. 
Humanity in all its variety is his theme. 

Thus, British insularity gets no support from him. He is the 
poet of internationalism. Italian Galuppi is the fellow, in his 
volumes, of German Abt Vogler and Master Hugues. When 
Tennyson glorified English naval heroism in his ballad of " The 
Revenge," Browning seemed to be saying to himself — " Well, 
other nations, too, have their heroes of the sea, — our old enemies, 
the French, for example. Here is this story of Herve Riel, for a 
sample." You might call off, from the titles, the different nations 
represented in his works. 



114 NOTES 

Browning has a pronounced habit of comparison and contrast. 
His " look on this picture and on this," is conspicuous in many- 
pairs -of poems. This poem is in itself a striking example of his 
method as applied to description. You might explain how he 
" composes " his picture; and distinguish his verbal way of dealing 
with his masses from the painter's way in his very different me- 
dium. Indeed, this is a good opportunity to seize the qualities of 
his descriptive work. What part do sight, hearing, movement, 
color, form, the clear image or the vague suggestion play in this 
and other poems? The employment of onomatopceia is very obvious 
in spots. Is it a conspicuous feature in Browning's works generally? 

There are no allusions here which a second or third year high 
school student should find strange. The great men referred to 
belong to the literature of the world (with one exception), and not 
merely to that of Italy. The facts connected with " Pulcinello " 
are interesting and entertaining — worth while looking up. 

But the main matter is to feel carried along by the vivid color- 
ing and picture-evoking quality of the poem. Enjoy these, and 
other by-products of study may be added to enhance the pleasure, 
— never to discount or endanger it. 

The Italian in England 

Both this poem and a companion poem, " The Englishman 
in Italy," were written after Browning's visit to Italy in 1844. 
They were originally entitled " Italy in England " and " England 
in Italy." The dramatic incident in this poem does not reproduce 
any particular historic incident. 

Does the poem carry its own sufficient meaning on its face to the 
general reader? Do you understand it without looking up. the 
few facts of Italian history to which it alludes, — that is, what was 
Italy's relation to Austria, — who Metternich was, — who was the 
great Italian patriot who found refuge in England? Or is the 
chief incident everything, and the historic framework neghgible? 
*' Tenebrw: " certain services of the Roman Cathohc Church, — • 
which should at once be plain to any student of Latin. The word 
is worth looking up; but note especially why this particular ser- 
vice should be selected by the poet. 

Is the title apt? Some writers have a genius for titles: how 
about Browning? Could you suggest an alternative title in this 
case? 

Instans Tyrannus 

This is a difficult poem for young minds. If it does not come 
clear after two readings, let it go. Poems are not meant to be 
puzzles. The title of the poem should be deciphered by some 



NOTES 115 

Latin student in the class. It is reminiscent of a phrase in the 
opening of one of the Odes of Horace (III-3): 

Justum et tenacem proposti virum 
Non civium ardor prava jubentium 
Non vultus instantis tyranni. 

Obviousl}'' it is, at least, a study of unreasoning, instinctive 
dislike and contempt: of what else? See if you can get at the 
poet's underlying motive. This belongs with other psychological 
studies of abnormal humanity (see Introduction, xii). Both 
the tyrant and his victim are unusual types; but does that detract 
from the striking climax? The humor of the piece has been called 
" boisterous, sardonic humor." (What, by the way, is the mean- 
ing of " sardonic " ?) Try teUing the story in its simplest terms, — 
just the action, as a third party might report it. Then try to tell 
it as " the wretch " might. Of course, the imagery of the closing 
stanza, — with the figure of the Arm, — must be ap{)reciated. Such 
words as " perdue " and " spilth " are worth notation and expla- 
nation by some connoisseur of words in the class. There is nothing 
like dividing up the work of commenting upon the text among 
the members of the class according to their special interests, — 
philological, historical, and so on. 

The Pied Piper of Hamelin 

As the eldest child of the great English actor, Macready, wa? 
confined to the house by illness. Browning wrote this jeu d' esprit 
to amuse the boy and to give him a subject for illustrative draw- 
ings. It was thrown into the volume of '' Dramatic Lyrics " at 
the last moment, for the purpose of filling up the sheet. 

It is to be hoped that the poem will be a delightful memory to 
every high school boy and girl, — a reminder of those days in one 
of the grades of the elementary school when the poem was read, 
reread, recited, and acted with keen enjoyment. There is only 
one other poem by Browning, familiar to j^oung people, which can 
compete with it in popularity. Can you say which? 

An editor asks himself, what can be added in the way of notes 
to accomplish the only purpose which justifies annotation, namely, 
the heightening of appreciation and enjoyment? Perhaps in this 
case some consideration of Browning's humor, both here and else- 
where, and the comedy-characters and incidents which are to be 
found in his works? Could you characterize what is distinctive 
of Browning's humor, as you might of the humor — let us say — of 
Mark Twain, or the gentler humor of Washington Irving? Com- 
pare, for instance, what may be characterized as the element of 
pure " fun and freak " in this poem with the quality of the humor 



116 KOTES 

in the " Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister " and " Holy-Cross 
Day "; or with the less obvious humor of " Up at a Villa — Down 
in the City." Some American youths may see no " humor " at 
all in that; and like honest lads, they will say so. What part 
does Browning's grotesque rhyming play in producing his effects? 

Another consideration which might help to set the poem in 
relief, and establish relations between it and other stories, is that 
which has to do with the musical magic of the Pied Piper. He is 
one of the musicians who illustrate the power of music, as does 
Orpheus, for example, or the charmers of wolves of which you may 
have heard in connection with Longfellow's allusion to the Loup- 
garou in " Evangeline " (line 280). There is a picture of a strange 
" charmer ", piping to a herd of hungry beasts who follow him, 
by our great artist Lafarge. 

Then there are other stories which tell of the opening and closing 
of a mountain-side, and the expectation that those who enter 
will some day emerge again. Some you surely know: can you recall 
them? 

We shall refrain from explaining various geographical words. 
Don't assume that this is because we consider that the locality is 
of no importance. Some are allusions which " every schoolboy 
should know." 

You will note that the poem is called a " child's story." Do you 
think it would greatly interest any high school student who should 
read it for the first time, and for whom it had no charm of recol- 
lection? 



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by Armour Caldwell. $0.30. [For Reading.] 
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Edited by Daniel K. Dodge, Professor of English in the Uni- 
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Palgrave's The Golden Treasury. 

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Shakspere's Macbeth. 

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the Department of English in the University of Chicago. $0.25. 
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Shakspere's The Merchant of Venice. 

Edited by Francis B. Gummere, Professor of English Literature 
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Shakspere's Twelfth Night. 

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Southey's Life of Nelson. 

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Tennyson's The Princess. 

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The Sir Roger de Coverley Papers. 

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Thoreau's Walden. 

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Washington's Farewell Address and Webster's First Bunker 
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Carlyle's Heroes, Hero=Worship, and the Heroic in History. 

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De Quincey's Flight of a Tartar Tribe. 

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De Quincey's Joan of Are and The English Mail Coach. 

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Dryden's Palamon and Arcite. 

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Irving's Tales of a Traveller. 

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Milton's Paradise Lost. Books \. and H. 

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